Ground Rules
by writergirl8
Summary: "Stiles, you can't live with Lydia! You're gonna start feeling stuff again, and one day she's going to bring a guy home and you're gonna be jealous and try to kiss her to prove your love and then, that's it. You're alone and homeless." Stiles considers this. Then he shrugs. "Nah," he says, waving a hand dismissively. "I think it's gonna be fine."


_**Disclaimer: Major Gilmore Girls spoilers lie ahead. You've been warned. **_

**May**

Scott is the first person that thinks that it's a bad idea.

When Stiles brings it up, he expects Scott to agree enthusiastically. They're on Skype together, both eating pizza and drinking beer. And, instead of allowing a huge build up, Stiles just says it. He doesn't think that he needs to preface it. The whole thing makes perfect sense in his head.

"So… Lydia and I are gonna live together next year."

To his credit, Scott manages to not spit out his sip of beer.

"Wait. What?"

He cocks his head slightly to the side and narrows his eyes at Stiles, leaning a bit closer to the camera.

"We just figured it makes sense," Stiles shrugs, now a bit more cautious with his words. "Like, Lydia's at MIT and I'm at Northeastern. We're living in the same city; apartments are expensive."

"And you couldn't buy an expensive apartment with someone else?"

Stiles raises one of his eyebrows, considering.

"I mean, we could, but… we know about each other. We can protect each other. It's gonna work out great."

"Stiles," Scott says, smushing his face as close to the camera as he can get it. "Dude. This is the worst idea you've ever had."

"Why?" Stiles asks, genuinely surprised.

"Because you're in love with Lydia," Scott says emphatically.

"What!" Stiles scoffs. "Dude, we're juniors in college. I haven't been in love with Lydia since senior year of high school."

"You mean you've been pretending not to be in love with Lydia since senior year. Nobody is stupid enough believe that you actually fell out of love with her, dumbass."

"Hey!" Stiles protests, frowning at Scott. "Be nice."

Scott takes a deep breath.

"Stiles, you can't just casually live with Lydia and not be thinking about the fact that she was the first girl you fell in love with. You're gonna start feeling that shit again, and then pretending that you're living together because you're a couple, and one day she's going to bring a guy home and you're gonna be jealous as fuck and try to kiss her to prove your love and then, that's it. You're alone and homeless."

Two brown eyes squint as Stiles considers this. Then he shrugs.

"Nah," he says, waving a hand dismissively. "I think it's gonna be fine."

(OOO)

Neither of them knows whose idea it was in the first place, but that doesn't stop Stiles from bringing it up again before they go home to California. Usually, they correlate their flights so that they're going back together, and their conversation about the flight seems like a perfect time to ask Lydia about apartment hunting.

"Do you wanna go look at some places?" he asks her, ripping open a flavor packet so that he can pour the seasoning into his ramen. Stiles swears under his breath as he underestimates the flavoring and some of it gets on the kitchen floor.

"Ramen?" Lydia asks knowingly.

"Yeah," Stiles responds weakly.

"I've never met anybody with such bad luck with flavor packets."

"It's a gift."

"So, apartments," she says again, as Stiles grabs a paper towel and bends to clean flavoring off of the floor of the communal kitchen. "I actually found some that would work for us."

"Really?" Stiles says happily. "That's great, Lyds."

"We can look the week before finals. Does that sound good?"

"Perfect," he says, because it just gives him another excuse to procrastinate and that's fine by Stiles.

Two weeks later, they're picking out apartments and Stiles has given Lydia full permission to decorate their place of residence however she wants to. They manage to find a place that's probably a bit over budget, but isn't as small as the apartments that most kids cram themselves into.

When he sees his name next to Lydia's on the lease, Stiles swallows hard, trying to push down the lump of emotion that has settled in his throat.

Nope.

No.

He's not going to worry. It's going to be totally fine.

**August**

Lydia spends the summer showing Stiles couches and asking him about color schemes. He answers dutifully, and sometimes, he'll say something that makes Lydia smile brightly at him, her dimples appearing on pale cheeks. It makes him want her to ask him about more stuff, anything at all, just so he can get her to smile again.

Scott still firmly believes that this is an awful idea, and Stiles is beginning to agree with him. But the lease has been signed and plans are being made and Stiles doesn't know whether it's better or worse that they're both single right now, because if Lydia were off limits, that would suck but he would at least know that he had absolutely no chance with her.

It's hard to understand why, but Stiles has always felt like there was some sort of chancewith Lydia. He can't explain it, but for him, his relationship with Lydia has always been an open door. Even though Stiles has spent most of the past two years with that door mostly closed, it's still been cracked slightly, and he's beginning to be slightly concerned that Scott is _right- _that Stiles won't be able to handle living with Lydia.

Nonetheless, they're on the plane by the middle of August, flying to set up their new home. Everything feels like it always does. Stiles brings the entertainment, Lydia brings the snacks. They've watched all of the _Star Wars _movies over the past two years. Lydia probably knows them better than Stiles does by now, knowing how smart she is.

Their apartment is only a half an hour away from Logan Airport, and they decide to take a taxi. Lydia tips the driver, waving away Stiles' money with a smile, and he gets so distracted by the look on her face, he forgets to argue.

If this is the way that living together is going to work, Stiles is totally screwed. He should probably start watching all of Lydia's favorite TV shows right now so that he'll be caught up by the time they come back in a month or so.

Stiles has the keys, and his hands are kind of shaking as he fumbles in his pocket for them.

"Are you going to carry me over the threshold?" Lydia asks, totally joking, but Stiles almost walks into a wall because he'd had a dream in which he did that two nights ago.

"What? No! Why would I…? I mean, it's not like we're married or-"

Lydia raises her eyebrows.

"Stilinski. Calm."

"Yeah. Sorry."

"Are you okay?" she asks when they reach the door. She snatches the key out of Stiles' hand and fits it into the door. She is not shaking, Stiles notices. Damn.

This hadn't felt real until they were standing in front of the apartment that they were going to have to share. Together. For a whole school year. Maybe even longer.

Shit.

(OOO)

Lydia does yoga in the living room on Mondays, Wednesdays, and Fridays. Even though Stiles tries to avoid the common area of their apartment during that time, it's sort of difficult when he keeps finding excuses to go in there. Sometimes, he'll sit at their tiny table for two, eat his cereal, and scroll through his twitter feed, actively avoiding staring at his roommate.

Had Stiles had the foresight to pick a different roommate, he wouldn't have to worry about avoiding the common area of their apartment. He probably would be right there with said roommate, doing yoga and making fun of it simultaneously. One of his friends had offered to live with him, and Stiles knows that he would have had a really great time with Jeff. They would probably spend their mornings playing video games and blasting music throughout the apartment. But he had picked Lydia—he _always _picks Lydia—and now he does not deserve video games or loud music. He has bought himself two semesters with a gorgeous, smart, sweet roommate who he has been in love with since the third grade.

He's such a dumbass.

"Hey," says a voice, and Stiles looks up from his phone to see Lydia, looking slightly sweaty and very relaxed as she plops herself down at the table across from him and shakes her hair down from its bun. "What time is your philosophy class today?"

Stiles swallows his cereal a bit too quickly and starts to cough.

"Um, eleven?"

"Do you need to check that?" Lydia teases him. "Okay. I'll take the train with you. I'm probably gonna go hang out in the Northeastern library."

"MIT library not doing it for you?"

Lydia shrugs.

"It's much more fun to listen to you make sarcastic comments about every person we encounter than to be stuck on the train all by myself."

Stiles raises his eyebrows and tilts his head to the side.

"I think that's a compliment."

Strawberry blond hair slips over Lydia's left shoulder as she laughs and pointedly nods her head.

"I think you're probably right."

For a moment, Stiles just grins stupidly at her, his eyes fixated on Lydia's.

"So…"

"So, maybe I should go take a shower?"

"Yeah, I think that's a good idea. You look disgusting."

She balls up his napkin and throws it at his head before walking out of the room, flipping him off as she goes and laughing all the way.

_You look disgusting_. How is saying _you look disgusting _going to make this living arrangement any easier? God, he's like one of those boys that teases the girls that he likes to get her to pay attention to him. Except this isn't middle school, and Stiles doesn't have the option of pissing Lydia off. She's always had the power in their friendship, or relationship, or whatever this is. And now, she has even more power because she can _very easily_ sneak into Stiles' bedroom and castrate him while he sleeps.

Stiles decides to Skype Scott.

"How's the horrible idea going?" Scott greets as soon as he answers. He's sitting in his dorm room, a highlighter tucked behind his ear. Stiles wonders where he picked that up.

"You suck."

"That well, huh?"

"I just told her that she looks disgusting."

"Okay… did she?"

"I… what? No. She's Lydia Martin. She doesn't ever look disgusting."

"You're living with her. You're bound to see her looking disgusting at some point," reasons Scott.

"I don't like this," Stiles grumbles. "I'm supposed to be the logical one; you know that, right?"

"You living with Lydia is _forcing_ meto be the logical one."

"Ugh."

"I know."

"So, I'm thinking that I need to set some ground rules."

"Okay…?"

"Like, for myself. So that I don't do something totally idiotic and fuck up this thing with Lydia."

"What thing?"

"Our friendship. Keep up, o' reasonable one."

"Sorry. I'm new to the position."

"Right, so, I don't want to screw up. I think that I need to make a list of stuff that I can't do, and then, if we establish the rules early, she'll never know that I…"

"You what?" asks Scott, challenging his best friend.

Stiles makes sure that the shower is still running before he continues.

"She'll never know that I'm still in love with her."

"Ha!" Scott cheers. "It took less than a month for you to admit that. Isaac owes me ten bucks. He had you down for three."

"Jeez. Even I wouldn't have bet on myself for that long."

"Right?"

It only takes Stiles a few seconds to get out of his chair and grab a pen and a piece of paper from his messenger bag, which is perched on the chair by the door. Lydia's purse is right next to the bag, the strap slung over one of the hooks. It's strangely intimate; Stiles wants to take a picture so that he can capture the moment for… something. The future, maybe.

The future that he probably doesn't even have with Lydia.

"So. Ground rule number one. No mean teasing," Stiles says, writing it down carefully.

"I think we've both agreed that this isn't middle school."

"Thank god. Do you remember how bad my hair was in middle school?"

Scott chuckles fondly.

"And you named my inhaler because I was sick of carting it around all the time."

"RIP, Carl."

"Oh, ground rule number two. Don't talk about the past."

"Like what?"

"Like middle school."

"Follow up question: why?"

"Because it'll remind her of the fact that you were in love with her in middle school and she never gave you the time of day. Try to avoid any time period where you were creepily obsessed with Lydia. Anything that happened before you were friends is totally off limits."

Stiles pauses.

"Is Kira feeding you this shit?"

"We may have discussed it once or twice. In passing."

"In passing, huh?"

"Uh, yeah."

"You suck, Scott."

"No, listen, you're my friend and Lydia's Kira's friend-"

"A quick ground rule for _you_… girls talk. Don't tell Kira that we've set ground rules because then she'll tell Lydia and Lydia is not allowed to know about the ground rules. They are off limits to her. It would just make everything insanely awkward."

"More awkward than it already is?"

"Bingo."

"Fine," Scott sighs. "I'll tell Kira not to tell Lydia when I tell her."

"Fuckin' hell, Scott!"

He just laughs.

"Ground rule number three," he says, ignoring Stiles' high pitched protests. "Do not compliment her. Ever."

"How am I possibly going to manage that?" Stiles asks disbelievingly.

"You'll survive," Scott says cheerfully. "Most guys can go a very long time without complimenting their totally platonic friends that are girls."

"What if she asks me if she looks fat?"

"Just say no," says Scott, now exasperated. "You don't have to recite love poetry every time she asks you if she's having a bad hair day."

"Wait, what if she's crying?"

"DON'T COMPLIMENT HER!"

"Fine," Stiles grumbles, tugging the piece of paper over to himself so that he can scribble the rule onto it. "And I guess I'm not allowed to _touch _her either, or walk by her in general."

"Yeah, good idea!" Scott nods, missing the sarcasm. "Don't touch her. Don't even let your hands brush."

"Dude, I was kidding," Stiles exclaims, gaping. "I can't just never touch her. That's weird. People touch each other all the time."

Scott raises his eyebrows.

"Right, but when you hug, say, _me_, you're not thinking about how good I smell or how soft my skin is."

"Christ, Scott, you moisturized once and just expected me to notice it."

"It made my hands baby smo- you know what, not the point. Do not touch Lydia. Ever."

Stiles writes it down, casually scratching his nose with his middle finger when he has put the pen down.

"Next?" he asks dejectedly, but Scott takes it in his stride.

"Next," says Scott, "No pining. Have a life."

"I have many a life!" protests Stiles. "I do shit."

"With girls," clarifies Scott. "Don't pine over Lydia when you know that you can't have her but you can have somebody else. As a matter of fact, it would probably be better for you if you were hooking up with someone because it would distract you from Lydia… I mean, you'd still be in love with her and stuff, but you wouldn't be distracted by every light breeze that goes by you."

"That's gross, Scott."

He shrugs.

"Oh, and speaking of sex—"

"Are we ever not speaking of sex?"

"If she has friends over, get the hell out of the house."

"Wait, how do you mean? Like, friends? Or _friends_?"

"_Friends,_" Scott says, widening his eyes. "Dude. You don't need to hear that. You don't need to have any of those sounds in your mind because that's going to lend itself to the next point."

"Which is?"

"Don't think about her naked."

In spite of how lewd it is, Stiles actually laughs out loud. His mouth opens wide as he throws his head back, slapping his hand a few times against the table just to make his point. Scott just stares patiently into the camera, his arms crossed over his chest.

"I'll wait," he says, sounding like a teacher passive-aggressively asking his class to settle down.

Stiles finishes laughing when he notices the pit of anxiety in his stomach.

"I can't do that," he says, pointedly putting the pen down. "Like, I literally am incapable of doing that."

"You're going to have to try," shrugs Scott. "You can't be fantasizing about what your roommate looks like underneath her clothes. It's hard enough when you have a thing for someone, but you're living with this girl. You can _never _think about her naked. Ever."

As impossible as it seems, Stiles writes down the point on the list. He thinks about what Lydia looks like naked as he writes down the fact that he should not think about what Lydia looks like naked.

"And don't see her naked, either!" Scott adds. "That's number eight. Because then you'll never stop picturing it."

"Too late for that," Stiles grumbles. "Half of Beacon Hills has seen Lydia naked at some point."

"Yeah, but it's different now," Scott reasons. "If you see her naked in your apartment, it's way more private and personal. It's more charged, right?"

"I guess," shrugs Stiles. "I've dealt with it before, that's all I'm saying."

"And do you really want to have to 'deal with it' while your roommate is home?"

"I swear to god, we cannot get through a conversation without discussing my masturbatory habits."

"I think that's accurate."

"I still don't think that rule number eight is going to be applicable, though," Stiles admits. "I mean, it stands to reason, but it's not like I'm going to see Lydia naked and jump her. I have self-control. Just because I want to sleep with her, doesn't mean that she wants to sleep with me."

"Oh, yeah, good rule. Don't sleep next to her. If you guys fall asleep together, there will definitely be snuggling, and that always creates awkwardness."

"Okay, but-"

"And that's nine. This is ten: No sex. I know that it's super convenient, and she might even be willing, but the two of you are roommates and you can't avoid each other if the sex is shitty or if everything becomes suddenly awkward because you sprouted feelings and Lydia didn't."

"Sprouted might not be the right word," says Stiles darkly, writing it down nonetheless. "How about 'because you grew the botanic gardens of feelings.'"

"Sweet. Which one?"

Stiles raises an eyebrow.

"Um?"

"I think I've been to the one in Illinois; it's great."

"Dude."

"Right. Last rule."

"Listening."

"Don't tell her that you love her, dumbass," Scott says. "I shouldn't even have to say this one, but just in case you completely lose your shit… there it is."

"Shall I read them out loud to make sure they're thorough enough?" Stiles inquires mockingly.

"I think we're good," Scott says, rolling his eyes. "Okay, so—"

"Scott, hey!" comes Lydia's voice, and Stiles looks up just in time to see his roommate walk into the living room and spy Scott on Skype. He scrambles to stuff the list into his pocket as she walks to the couch and bends over it, putting her face right next to Stiles' face so that she can be visible on the screen. He waves halfheartedly.

"Lydia, hi!" he says. "I forgot you were living there. With Stiles. My best friend."

Stiles narrows his eyes and flares his nostrils as confusion flits across Lydia's face.

"Okay then," she says, knitting her eyebrows together. "How are your classes this year?"

As Scott dives into a thorough explanation of a strange elective he is taking, Lydia easily swings herself over the couch and plops herself down next to Stiles. She leans in so close that her hair is tickling his cheek. Stiles breathes in the scent, letting his eyes drift shut at the comfortingly familiar sound of her voice. When he realizes what he's doing, they pop open in alarm.

"Erm, I'll be right back," he says, handing Scott over to Lydia. He leaps off of the couch like it's on fire and dashes to his bedroom, where he slams the door shut and throws himself over to his desk. Breathlessly, he pulls the list of ground rules out of his back pocket and smoothes them out. After reading them one more time, Stiles opens the drawer at the bottom of his desk and shoves the list in it.

Hopefully, these words will never again see the light of day. Hopefully, he won't need them to.

**September**

When he gets back from his six o'clock lecture, Lydia is already in the kitchen. She doesn't usually start cooking without him, but she must have had a particularly good day today, because there's music floating from the speaker in the corner and Lydia is swaying her hips to it while singing quietly along. Her short skirt flares out around her upper thighs, and Stiles can tell that her hair has been in some sort of braid all day because it is now floating around her face in pieces that are still kinky from the style.

"I love this song," is the first thing that he says, and Lydia turns around with a beam on her face as she turns up the music in response. Stiles laughs, placing his messenger bag on the chair and moving into their small kitchen, where Lydia is twirling by herself. Without thinking, he catches her hand and lets her twirl using his finger. When she grabs his shoulders and begins to dance in an even dorkier way, Stiles can't help but join in with her.

They dance until the song is over, then separate, both slightly flushed red from bouncing around.

"How was your day?" Stiles asks, huffing slightly, and Lydia's eyes brighten.

"It was _phenomenal_," she says enthusiastically. "One of my professors asked me to assist in a trial that he's doing in the chem lab. So many students wanted the position—it was such an honor."

"There's nobody better for the job," Stiles says fondly, watching as Lydia dances over to the stove and checks on the mac & cheese that she's making. "Congrats."

Her eyes are shining as she opens the fridge to grab some lettuce for a salad. Stiles thinks that it's counterproductive to eat mac & cheese with salad, but he doesn't say anything as he walks over to her and grabs the celery out of her hand to begin chopping it.

"Oh, _and_," Lydia adds, bending down to grab something from a cabinet. "One of my friends gave me extremely cheap champagne to celebrate."

"Oh hell yes," Stiles says. "Mac & cheese, salad, and champagne. Today makes so much sense."

Lydia drains the water from the pot while Stiles tosses the salad, just like she'd showed him the last time he fucked it up. He thinks that his dad would be pretty damn impressed with him for how much he's learned about cooking since he moved into an apartment.

"Butter?" Lydia says, turning around, and Stiles is already tossing it over to her smoothly, sliding the milk moments later. "Aren't you on top of things?"

He shrugs, setting the salad on their small table with two chairs.

"You know, I do try."

"Only when there's food involved," cracks Lydia, ducking when Stiles throws a dish towel at her head.

She places the bowl of mac & cheese on the table just as Stiles is setting down forks for the two of them. While he turns down the music so that they can speak more easily, Lydia has already grabbed the ketchup bottle and is squirting it into her pasta.

"You know that's a disgusting habit, right?" Stiles asks, and Lydia scrunches her nose adorably at him.

"You only say that because you've never tried it," she insists, and then, to prove her point, she sticks her fork in her mouth and releases a long moaning noise.

Well that's not fair.

"Stop it," Stiles says halfheartedly.

Lydia wiggles her eyebrows.

"Want some, Stiles?" she asks, scooping up some pasta and zooming it over to him while making car noises.

"Get it away!" he screeches, jumping out of his chair. Lydia lets out a surprised laugh, clasping her hand over her mouth as she stares at him delightedly.

"Damn," she says, shoveling the bite into her own mouth. "You're missing out."

"I'm sure," Stiles says, settling back into his chair. For a moment, they just laugh together. And they don't need to say anything. And it's not weird when they stare at each other over the table. It's not weird when he notices darker pieces of red in her hair under the florescent light. "So what are we making for dinner for the rest of the week?"

They like to plan out their meals ahead of time so that they can budget for them. They usually end up cooking together, and cleaning too, because it turns out that it's much more fun to do these things in pairs than by themselves. The best part of Stiles' day is dancing around the kitchen with Lydia. When she has bad days, he does anything to make her laugh, and cooking dinner always makes it happen.

Even though they've only been living together for a month, he already feels that it is his personal responsibility to make Lydia happy. Maybe he's always felt that way. He knows that it's always been his task to make her feel like she's worth something, but now that a million other people have acknowledged that, Stiles needs a new job. Getting her to smile is as good as any.

"So do you remember Hallie?"

Stiles sticks a piece of lettuce into his mouth and grimaces when he realize that it doesn't have any dressing on it.

"Hallie?" he asks absently.

"That girl who came over a few days ago," Lydia says, handing him the dressing so that he can drench his salad even more than he already has. "The one with the brown hair?"

"Sure," Stiles says. Lydia had brought a friend over to study. She'd been cute. Not as cute as Lydia, but not even bunny rabbits are cuter than Lydia, and Stiles fucking loves bunny rabbits.

"She asked for your number," Lydia says casually. She sets down her fork and grabs for the champagne bottle that is resting in the middle of the table. Her glass is empty, but instead of filling it, she lifts the bottle to her lips and takes a long sip. When she sees the look on Stiles' face, she just shrugs. "Did I mention how cheap this champagne is?"

"Mhmm."

"So, Hallie," Lydia nudges. "Do you want me to give her your number?"

"Um…"

"What, do I need to tell you her cup size before you say yes?"

"Lydia!" says Stiles, aghast. "Rude!"

She rolls her eyes as she grabs the elastic off of her wrist to sweep her hair up into a bun. Stiles stares at her graceful neck, ignoring the swooping feeling in his stomach.

"Not rude. Just blunt."

"How close are you to this girl?" Stiles questions, pouring more champaign into his glass.

He knows that there are all these rules with girls about who they can and can't date after their friends have dated them, and far be it from him to make Lydia even less likely to date him than she was before.

But she simply shrugs, directing her attention towards squashing the olives in her salad. Usually she'll eat them. He wonders what she suddenly has against olives .

"We've had a few classes together over the years," she says. "Just a school friend, though."

It figures that Lydia would be friends with the hot girls at MIT. Stiles is pretty sure MIT has a reputation for not possessing very many attractive alum.

"Sure," Stiles says, voice quiet. "I guess you can give her my number."

He notices Lydia's lips thinning as she scrolls through her phone. Then he decides not to say anything about it.

(OOO)

When a person is vigorously shaking your shoulder, it is very difficult to remain asleep. When that person happens to be Lydia Martin, and you know that you're going to have an excellent view of her cleavage when you open your eyes, it's even harder. Stiles fights it desperately as Lydia places a hand on his shoulder, rubbing a small circle with her thumb.

"Come on, Stiles," she coaxes sweetly. "Waaake uuup."

He's splayed out across the couch, drooling slightly on the upholstery, but when he realizes that she is literally straddling his hips and bending over him, his eyes fly wide open.

Shit.

"L-lyds?" he asks through a yawn. "W-what're you doin'?"

"It's Friday night," she points out. When he opens his eyes, he realizes that she's dressed to go out. "And I'm going to a bar and you're coming."

Neither of them are twenty-one yet, but that's never stopped Lydia from being social on Friday nights. Usually, though, Stiles is crashed on the couch and Lydia just tweets about how much he's snoring before she leaves the apartment. Usually, he'll wake up to a picture of himself drooling on Instagram.

Not tonight, apparently.

"I don't wanna go to the bar," protests Stiles, but he already knows that it's futile because he would literally follow Lydia to the end of the earth, no questions asked. "I want to sleep and play Mario Kart."

"Don't we all," she patronizes, finally getting off of his lap. Thank god. "It's too bad that life gets in the way."

"Mario Kart _is _life!" Stiles protests, astonished by this great depth in Lydia's knowledge.

"Mario Kart does not promote the social interaction that metropolitan Boston does," Lydia says patiently. "A large part of the college experience is taking the opportunities to mingle with your peers and therefore learn about social interaction that will enhance your experience in the workforce. Now get up and put on that blue button down."

"Which one?" Stiles asks, yawning and stretching as he lifts himself off of the couch.

"The lighter one."

"Got it," he says, stumbling into his bedroom to change.

"And don't forget to roll the sleeves up to your elbows!" Lydia calls after him.

The bar at which they are meeting Lydia's friends is only a few T stops over, but when Stiles sees the tight black dress that Lydia is wearing with high heels, he decides that he is glad to be with her on the train. There's a Sox game tonight, so most of the people are rowdy and slightly drunk, but Lydia manages the crowd like an expert, her fingers clamped firmly on Stiles' wrist as she pulls him through North Station.

He doesn't really know why she doesn't let go once they're on the train, but eventually, Lydia's grip relaxes in spite of the fact that they are still wrapped around Stiles. He stares at them, trying not to be too obvious as Lydia hums absently to herself. She's got the look on her face that she gets when she's concentrating really hard on math problems, so he knows that she must be thinking about school. In that case, it's probably best that they're going out tonight.

Most of Lydia's friends are girls, and, when they arrive at the bar, none of them miss the fact that she and Stiles are practically holding hands. The girls give Lydia a pointed look, which Stiles decides she is completely oblivious to when he sees the casual way she drops his hand and goes to hug one of her friends. There are only a few guys at their booth, but Stiles has met them before, and he quickly finds his place next to them. Somehow, Lydia ends up seated next to him, and then they're ordering spinach and artichoke dip and having conversations with separate people, their bodies pressed tightly against each other.

They've picked a more upscale place than Stiles' friends would have selected, but he's able to sink into the atmosphere with relative ease. One of the guys is from BU, and Stiles gets into a conversation about the cadaver lab that they have over there for the premed and nursing students. Lydia is talking to a girl who goes to Simmons, one of the Fen schools, and asking about how the experience of a single-sex school differs from co-ed classrooms.

It figures that Stiles would be talking about dead bodies and Lydia would be discussing the disruption of societal norms in gender-biased situations.

At some point in the night, one of the girls, Lisa, admits that she's thinking about moving in with her boyfriend. Stiles has never met Lisa, and Lisa isn't friends with Lydia, so, of course, it makes sense that she would be the one to make their situation awkward.

"What was it like when you two moved in together?" she asks, turning to Lydia and Stiles. They exchange glances. Underneath the table, Lydia's hand brushes his knee, and he almost shoots out of his skin. When she gives him an apologetic look, he knows that it was an accident.

"It was really simple," Lydia shrugs, probably trying to give the girl a hint that their relationship isn't the same kind as the one she's stressing out about. "I mean, we were pretty agreeable when it came to apartments, so it was just a matter of getting into the routine."

She pats Stiles' shoulder fondly.

"He does the grocery shopping, and I take out the trash. That way, neither of us is doing our least favorite thing about adulthood."

"I didn't know that you hate grocery shopping," one of the girls says, and everybody laughs as Lydia nods her head vigorously. Just when Stiles thinks that the subject is off of their living arrangement, Lisa strikes again.

"But, seriously," she says, still laughing a bit. "Do you think that it strengthened your relationship?"

Stiles opens his mouth to correct her yet again, but Lydia cuts him off.

"Yes, we're definitely closer than we were before," she says. "He's my best friend."

If there was any possibility that a heart could beat out of its chest, his would be doing it right about now. He thinks that he possibly could vomit up his heart in this moment, but he tries to swallow it down.

"We've always worked well together," he adds finally, staring at his hands where they rest on top of the table. He glances over at her cautiously. "We just… you know… make stuff make sense."

He realizes in hindsight that it's going to be much harder to convince Lisa—and anyone else, really—that they're not a couple after that particular statement.

But then he sees the smile on Lydia's face, and the way she glances at his hand on the table like she isn't sure if she wants to take it or not. She dithers for a moment, and Stiles makes it easier by moving his hand off of the table and placing it on his knee. When Lydia sees that it is under the table, she flips his palm over, laces her fingers through his, and squeezes.

She creates patterns on his palm for the rest of the night.

**October**

It's Lydia who decides that they're going to start staying in on Friday nights.

"What about socialization skills that will be an asset to us in the workforce?" Stiles had teased, but Lydia had just bumped him with her hip and added gummy bears to the shopping list that they were writing. Stiles had appreciated the fact that she remembers that he needs sugar to study.

It's not like he has a problem with it. Though he's been attempting to use his Friday nights as a way to relieve his tension, he's starting to find that, no matter who he is with, he will always be thinking about Lydia. He only takes Scott's advice three times before he quits the whole thing altogether. It's never going to work, anyways. He will pine after Lydia Martin for all of eternity.

So when she decides that they are going to spend their Fridays binge-watching _Chuck_, Stiles doesn't have a problem with it at all. Lydia comes home from her last class at 3:30, breathing a sigh of relief as she drops her purse onto the chair and leans against the door, knocking her head against it.

"That good, huh?"

"Today sucked dick," she says flatly, kicking off her shoes to their spot next to his. Seeing Lydia barefoot and in tights is one of Stiles' favorite things. He doesn't know why. Maybe it's because she used to walk around like that all the time when they were little kids.

He knows that she's struggling with her mythology class, and he's pretty sure that's where she just came from. It's not that Lydia doesn't have the capability to study the material or anything. It's just that it's _hard_ when it's so close to home. Stiles is aware of the fact that she took it in order to overcome her PTSD, but it's just exacerbating it and causing even more stress on her.

"Well, we have chocolate cake," he says. "I baked it myself."

Lydia pulls a face.

"Did you taste it this time?"

"Better- it was boxed."

"Ah," she says, bending down to kiss the top of his head. "I adore you for doing that."

Okay, he knows that the last cake was pretty bad, but, seriously… was it so bad that it warranted such a strong reaction? Baking is difficult! Lydia hasn't baked a cake, Stiles reminds himself. She can't judge.

"Ready for _Chuck_?" he asks, and Lydia shakes her head.

"Wait. Let me just change my clothes."

She heads into her bedroom, already pulling off her shirt as she walks into it. She doesn't close her door, and Stiles has to listen to her unzipping things and dropping them to the floor. He bends over so that he can bang his head against the endtable.

It's like she's torturing him on purpose.

When she pads back into the living room, she's wearing a sports bra, a tank top, and a pair of shorts that say BHHS on the butt. Although she's still wearing makeup, her hair has been taken out of its bun and is flowing freely around her waist. When she sees the fact that he has not gotten the cake from the kitchen, she raises her eyebrows questioningly.

"Right, cake, sorry!" says Stiles, hauling himself over the back of the couch so that he can grab it. Lydia sits gracefully on the couch and takes the remote, queuing up Netflix.

"Hey, Stiles?" she calls. "Who was watching _Gilmore Girls?_"

Oh shit. Men don't watch _Gilmore Girls_, right? He can't tell her that he loves _Gilmore Girls_.

"I had a girl over," he lies, and when she doesn't say anything, he uses his head to bang the open cabinet closed after he retrieves plates from it.

When he sits back on the couch, he pretends to not notice the fact that Lydia shifts closer to him as the theme song to _Chuck _starts playing. He pretends not to notice the fact that she hums along, tapping her bare foot against the fabric of the couch from where it rests under her knee. He tries not to notice the fact that she smells like a Victoria's Secret store, but better, because it's Lydia, and also she is without the lingering smell of soft pretzels from the mall.

"I wish we were that badass," Lydia comments as they watch Sarah and Casey tell Chuck to stay in the car. Per usual.

"Please," Stiles rolls his eyes. "If we were characters in _Chuck_, I would be season one Chuck. I have the intersect, but none of the awesome download features that come later in the show."

"And who would I be? Lou? Short and good at making sandwiches?"

He glances over at her, startling a how close she is to him. Her feet are pressed up against his feet, and she's leaning in his direction.

"You'd be Sarah," he says. "You're probably smarter than her."

"Not as good at fighting," Lydia says darkly.

Without meaning to, they've delved into territory that they both know they aren't allowed to go into. Stiles swallows hard, not sure how to step without cracking the ice. Lydia just looks up at him pleadingly until he nudges her with his elbow.

"Hey. No. You used my bat technique. You were amazing."

She closes her eyes.

"But that didn't stop-"

"No," Stiles says, grabbing her arm. "No. Just… don't, Lydia. You can't blame yourself for any of that stuff."

"I can," she whispers.

She's quiet all of the time now. She won't scream for anything- not even if he sneaks up behind her and pokes her in both sides and shouts "BOO!" in her ear. And he knows that she's partly doing it because she's gotten control of herself. But he also knows that she's doing it to protect him. Anything to protect him.

Even if she doesn't love him, they will always be anchored to each other. Emotional tethers. They look out for each other. They protect each other.

They sit on the couch together and watch _Chuck _and make everything okay.

(OOO)

When Lydia rams her knuckles against Stiles' bedroom door, he already knows what she wants. He's got an essay open on the computer in front of him and it's due tomorrow and he's only on the third paragraph. But he gets out of his chair anyways, saving his paper before he swings open the door and sticks his head through it.

"Yeeeees?" he greets, swinging on the door. Lydia holds up her phone.

"Study with me," she requests. She's taking one of her history requirements this semester, and since Stiles took the class last semester, he's been helping her. Most of the class is exam based, but they've got it covered.

"Fine," says Stiles, shutting the door to his bedroom behind himself as he follows her out into the living room.

When they pass her bedroom, he tries not to notice the neatly made bed and the pretty white and green adornments. Noticing these things doesn't exactly help the whole 'don't think about her naked' ground rule.

"Okay," Lydia says, positioning herself in front of the couch. Stiles stands in front of the television with his back to the screen. When Lydia puts the phone on her forehead, he rubs his hands together and bounces slightly to give himself energy. She grins at his enthusiasm, biting her lip as she tries to keep herself from smiling too hard.

"Ready?"

She nods.

"Hit me with it."

When the screen lights up with a name, Stiles launches into an explanation.

"English shipping laws regarding shipping and—"

"Navigation laws!" Lydia shouts, tilting the phone down.

"British legislation that taxed rum, and um, sugar, and—"

"The Molasses Act?"

"Yes! Okay, um… shit, this is…oh, this is the one that required citizens of the colonies to allow British soldiers into their—"

"Quartering Act!"

"Fuck yeah!" says Stiles in what he hopes is a supportive manner. "Perfect, Lydia."

"IS IT STILL GOING?" she screeches, jumping up and down. Stiles' eyes widen and he lurches forward, getting closer to the iPhone.

"PRIME MINISTER OF ENGLAND WHO PROPOSED THE SUGAR AND STAMP ACTS!"

"GEORGE GREENVILLE!"

"GAVE PARLIAMENT THE POWER TO TAX THE COLONIES WITHOUT REPRE-"

"DECLARATORY ACT!" yells Lydia.

"AUTHOR OF LETTERS FROM A FARMER IN PENNSYLVANIA."

"Ah… shit, shit, shit…" she starts jumping up and down, shaking her hands crazily as she bounces. "_Shit_…John…um? JOHN DICKSON."

The game times out just as Stiles sighs,

"Dickinson, but close."

"I have to work on that," Lydia says breathlessly.

They're close to each other, due to the intensity that HeadsUp inevitably brings to a moment, and they're both almost breathless as they stare at each other. Suddenly shy, Stiles allows his eyes to drift from Lydia's face to her torso. He immediately regrets it as he sees her heaving chest.

"You… you did a really good job."

"Thanks," she says, her eyes dropping away from his.

They don't say anything.

"Well," Lydia says suddenly, brushing her skirt. "Ready to go again?"

She hands Stiles the phone and he inhales deeply before placing it on his forehead and letting out a lengthy exhale.

(OOO)

There's a girl on the floor when he comes home.

She's crumpled into herself, her knees drawn up to her chest, her face covered by her hands. She is leaning against the wall, shaking vigorously. When she hears the door close, her head shoots out of her hands, displaying pale skin that is streaked with mascara.

"Stiles," she says, voice broken. "I'm sorry, I don't… I…"

He doesn't say anything. Just shakes his head and crawls onto the floor, leaning on the wall next to her as her body continues to heave with sobs. He holds her hand as he waits for her to tell him what's wrong. He sandwiches it between both of his, covering it completely. Then he is silent.

Lydia slows down after a few minutes, but her body is still trembling. She squeezes her eyes shut as Stiles nudges her hair with his nose, trying to tell her that it's okay to talk. And Lydia nods, leaning her head against his shoulder and placing her other hand on their pile of hands. Her legs are kind of on top of his legs, her feet entwining with his, but he doesn't 's there.

"I just get… triggered… sometimes," she says in an undertone. "Like, I'll be walking down the street, and everything is completely fine, and then I'll see something and I can't _breathe _and I feel like there are a million ghosts standing in front of me, blocking my path because I'm living my life and they're just… not. They're not."

Stiles nods, knowing that she can feel the movement.

"And today?"

She opens her eyes. Stares at the wall like she isn't really seeing it.

"It was stupid."

"No it wasn't."

Her eyes flicker up to his before going back to the blank wall.

"I was Halloween shopping with a few of my friends for this party that we're going to next week, and… and…" He waits for her to say what she needs to say, humming low in his throat in what he hopes is a soothing manner. There's a song that she's been playing on repeat for the past week, and he doesn't know the words, but he goes over the melody as quietly as he can, just loud enough for Lydia to be able to hear it. "It was a Robin Hood costume," Lydia says angrily. "And there was a bow and arrow set."

Stiles wants to hit his head against the wall for not figuring it out sooner. He keeps forgetting that the only reason that he is Lydia's best friend is because her real best friend is dead.

"Looks like the world continues to have no sympathy for us," he mutters bitterly, unsure of how to comfort her as anger flows through him.

"It's my fault," Lydia professes. "I shouldn't be crying about this, it's been years, and-"

"That is _bullshit_," Stiles says, slowly and clearly. "You can cry as much as you fucking want, Lydia. Your best friend died to save your life, and it's your right to cry about it."

He feels water welling up in his eyes because he knows that it was his fault, he knows that it was, and he still dreams about Lydia screaming Allison's name at the moment of her death. He dreams of empty, hollow Scott and shocked Isaac and broken Chris Argent and a small, lonely Lydia that has to go through life knowing what it feels like to feel like you have nobody.

How can she be living with him after all that he's done to her? He doesn't even deserve to be touching her right now, or comforting her. You're supposed to earn this closeness with somebody, but all Stiles has done is kill Lydia's best friend and ignore her when he couldn't face the guilt that surrounded Allison's death. Instead of dealing with the consequences of his actions, he had gone out with somebody else immediately after he recovered just to distract himself from the issues that were genuinely under his skin. And he had abandoned Lydia.

But when he starts to pull away, she just tugs him back.

"I know what you're thinking," she says. "And _no_. No, Stiles."

To prove her point, she reaches up to caress his cheek, running a thumb along the stubble there. Unable to help himself, Stiles leans into her touch.

"It's my fault." His voice cracks.

"It's _my _fault." Her voice is wavering.

He loves coming home to her. He loves it more than anything. But right now, all he can see is the damage that he has inflicted upon her.

"Lydia." He separates himself from her and gets up. "I'm so sorry. I just… I fucking… I can't."

He disentangles himself from their embrace and walks straight back out the door, walking as quickly as he can to the elevator so that he can just fucking get out, get away from her, this girl who he has loved and who he has broken.

The doors to the elevator have just opened when Lydia runs out of their apartment, barefoot and with mascara still running down her cheeks. Stiles turns his back on her, hoping that she will get the message, but she doesn't back off. Instead, she walks close to him and winds her arms around his torso, pressing her nose against his back. He tries to cry as soundlessly as he can, but he isn't sure how well he does. His body is stiff against her embrace, unyielding, but they remain until the elevator doors have slid shut.

"S'not your fault," Lydia murmurs into the fabric into his shirt. She lifts her head. "Stiles, it isn't. And it's not my fault either. It's just… what happened."

He leans against the elevator, letting his breath fog the metal doors.

"I killed her."

"You didn't kill her."

"And I hurt you."

"I know you did."

He inhales sharply at her admission.

"And I can't take that back."

Lydia hesitates.

"Are you sure about that?" she asks, but Stiles doesn't say anything. "You can come inside with me. That's how you can take it back. You can come back inside."

He's silent as she backs away, taking his hand and tugging him to their apartment.

"I'm sorry," he says again. "I didn't mean to make that about… me."

Lydia glances back at him, pausing in her walk.

"Stiles. No. Whatever guilt you're telling with from the Nogitsune… I don't care how long it's been. Talk to me about it. You live with me. I'm always here."

She puts her hand on the doorknob and twists, still facing Stiles. The door swings open, but Lydia doesn't move.

"Maybe we should call Scott," she whispers.

Stiles nods emotionlessly and doesn't tell her that he doesn't think anything can fix him.

**November**

The MIT campus is probably one of the blandest in Boston, but it does happen to be right by the Charles River. Stiles waits for Lydia on their favorite bench, watching the water as he waits for her to get out of her class. He doesn't actively look for her, but she's pretty easy to spot anyways- she's one of the only students that wears bright colors and extremely short skirts. MIT is plagued by an overabundance of male attendees.

When Lydia does emerge from the building that he's in front of, he finally notices her because of the click of her heels against the pavement on the ground. Stiles looks up instantly, a grin automatically washing across his face at the sight of her. When she sees him, her eyes light up in surprise, and a small smile tugs at her own lips. With Lydia, that's about as good as a kiss on the cheek from any normal person.

"What are you doing here?" she asks, her voice lifting in her happiness.

"You just had mythology, right?" Stiles says. He continues when she does a motion that is both a nod and a shrug. "So I thought I would bring you some lunch before you have your engineering class."

"Lunch?" Lydia perks up even more, searching behind Stiles for the food. He reaches to the ground and grabs their double-bagged lunch, still warm even from the long walk. "Oh my god. You didn't."

Stiles shrugs.

"It was no trouble. I was already over there."

"You were already by the BU cafeteria?" she questions doubtfully. "What were you doing by BU, Stiles?"

He shuffles guiltily, sticking his hands in his pocket.

"Um… picking up food from the stall that sells thanksgiving stuff year-round?"

Lydia squeals delightedly, her features opening up at the sight of the turkey and stuffing that Stiles pulls out of the bag. Thanksgiving is still a few weeks away, but they've both been talking nonstop about how excited they are for the holiday. Neither of them are going home to California, so they're going to try cooking it together. But today, Stiles had woken up, had a muffin, and realized that what he _really _wanted was creamy mashed potatoes. And then a plan had formed.

"Do you want to sit down?" Lydia asks, already heading over to the bench. She crosses her legs underneath herself and puts the bag of food on her lap to protect her skirt as she drizzles gravy onto her turkey. By the time Stiles has sat down and put his food on his lap, she's munching happily on her meal, tapping her bare feet against the bench. It's not warm outside, but Lydia's heels have some sort of odd resistance to the elements after years of wearing heels. Plus, the sun is hot and bright in the blue sky, bathing them in a warmth that only fall weather can provide.

"How was your class?" Stiles want to know, and Lydia immediately launches into conversation about the Greek mythology that they've been going over for the past few classes. He's proud of her for her enthusiasm, and for her unaffected portrayal of her life. She's a different person than the girl that he'd fallen in love with when he was a kid, but she's different in the best way possible. She is finally the girl that he has always known she could be. And it's kind of amazing to look at.

He finds himself wanting to talk to her all of the time, and be around her all of the time. His favorite day is Wednesday because she goes to the Northeastern campus with him and spends the day in the library. They meet up for lunch at one of the food trucks and then sit on the grassy circle at the center of campus. And when they get home, they cook dinner together. They collapse onto the couch and watch television together. They study together, if not the same subject, then at least they're sitting in the same room. Sometimes, she'll just come into his room in the middle of the night and want to talk about the most random things. He always blearily blinks himself awake as Lydia crawls onto his bed and flops next to him, stretching her body out before tightly curling up into herself and stealing his covers, her head on the third pillow that he has started to keep in his bed for events such as these.

Okay, yeah, sleeping next to each other is one of the ground rules. Stiles knows that. But he's kept all of the other ones! Well, except for no touching. And no talking about the past. And no pining. And no teasing. _And _no thinking about her naked, although he doesn't even know why that one is on the list because it was literally never going to happen.

But then he looks over at Lydia, waving her arms animatedly, her eyes sparkling as she tells a story. He's not going to sacrifice pieces of their friendship just because of a list of very essential rules. There are a couple that he has to keep, but he's broken so many already and they're closer than they've ever been before. They're okay. She's definitely okay, and he's probably okay, because even though it hurts, it's better than nothing at all.

Besides, there's still a couple of ground rules left to keep.

(OOO)

When Lydia stumbles into the kitchen to wake up with Stiles for his 8 AM class (seriously, who the hell let him take an 8 AM class? He blames Scott for this), she practically dives for the coffee.

"What are you doing up?" he asks, because she usually won't wake up with him barring a national emergency.

"I wanted to ask you for a favor," she says through a yawn. When she stretches to get a mug from the cabinet, Stiles nearly falls over when the oversized t-shirt that she is wearing- probably his, judging from the fact that it says Beacon Hills Lacrosse and has _Stilinski _written on the back- pulls high up over the curve of her… well… _ass._

Stiles slams himself into a chair at the kitchen table as a precautionary measure. Lydia doesn't notice the noise; she's too busy moaning in pleasure as her coffee hits her tongue.

"F-favor?" Stiles questions, hoping to get the scene over with so that Lydia will leave the kitchen and he can follow. Lydia nods, settling herself across the table and wrapping two hands around a plain green mug. When Stiles looks down at his own cup, he sees that it that says _Lydia _in pink letters. "I think we should switch," he jokes, gesturing to his mug, but Lydia shakes her head lazily.

"Nope," she disagrees, leaning her head against the wall. "I like the current arrangement."

Stiles swallows.

"Favor," he repeats. For a moment, he thinks that Lydia has fallen back asleep as she leans her head against the wall, tilting sideways in her chair. Then she pops her eyes open, seeming to shake herself out of the sleepiness.

"Right," Lydia says, leaning her cheek against her knee. Her foot is on the chair, nails painted a pinkish red color. "Well, I've been asked to attend a very important event next month. A fundraiser for the research project that I'm assisting with, actually. It's black tie and everything, and I was wondering if you would be my date."

The word 'date' does not help Stiles create black-and-white lines in an area that seems extremely, terrifyingly gray to him right now.

"I would love to be your date," he says, wondering if his voice is actually as high pitched as he thinks it is right now. Lydia doesn't seem to think so; she switches positions so that she can lean forward on her knees to kiss him on the forehead.

"Thank you so much," she says, then yawns again. "Alright. Since I'm up, I might as well take a shower and start studying."

"Cool," Stiles says, still pretty immobile.

Lydia heads into the bathroom and closes the door behind herself; a moment later, Stiles hears the water turn on and decides that he can finally breathe. He goes into his bedroom to grab his messenger bag and lifts his laptop into his lap so that he can scroll through twitter a little bit before he goes to class. Isaac is tweeting about his new girlfriend; Scott has had a funny twitter exchange with Kira; Malia has posted a funny quote from _It's Always Sunny in Philadelphia; _and Neil Patrick Harris has posted an insanely cute picture of his kids_._

Stiles is just about to respond to one of Liam's tweets when he hears his name being yelled imploringly. When he closes his laptop and opens the door, he hears Lydia's voice call for him again. Curious, Stiles knocks on the door.

"You rang?" he says uncertainly.

"Yeah, you can come in," Lydia calls, even though the water is still running.

"What's up?" Stiles inquires, opening the door a crack and keeping his eyes firmly closed. Lydia's laugh comes from further inside of the bathroom, but he doesn't make any move to open his eyes.

"I left my razor in my bedroom, can you grab it?"

"But… it's no shave November," Stiles reminds her, feeling very much like he would enjoy adding a 'duh!' at the end of the sentence.

"Razor, Stilinski!" instructs Lydia, and Stiles scurries over to her bedroom. The door is cracked open, and the razor is sitting on her dresser, instantly visible when he enters the room. He walks back to the bathroom and decides to handle it with the utmost of maturity- he even keeps his eyes open when Lydia sticks a hand out and grasps for the razor. "Ack, I can't get it," she complains, throwing back the curtain so that only her head and shoulder are visible.

"Here," Stiles says, placing it in her hand. When her hair is this wet, it's even longer than usual. It kind of blows his mind, actually, how long her hair is.

"Thank you!" Lydia says, leaning a bit more, and that's when he sees the corner of one rosy pink nipple peeking out from the shower curtain.

Oh shit.

"I gotta… you, um… you're welcome!" he calls over his shoulder as he scrambles to get out of the bathroom, knocking over a bottle of lotion as he goes.

She's still shaving, obviously, so Stiles has no problem with kicking his bedroom door shut and pushing his pants past his hips. Even though he feels like an idiotic sixteen year old, he can't help but jump onto his bed and close his eyes, picturing her breast as he gets off. And, yes, he knows that it's wrong. He's fully aware. But even though he's picturing himself getting into the shower with her and facing her against the back wall, doesn't mean that he would ever, ever act on it.

Maybe Scott was right about hooking up.

(OOO)

They've been cooking for hours. Seriously. Hours. The entire apartment is filled with some of the best smells that Stiles has ever experienced, but he doesn't know if he's going to be able to stay awake long enough to eat the foods that go with them. They used a week's worth of food money to get all of the ingredients, but it's worth it.

Lydia is wearing a brown dress with a red belt, even though it's only the two of them. She's got makeup on, and has done her hair up in milkmaid braids so that it doesn't get into the food. As Stiles places even more marshmallows in the sweet potatoes- and several dozen in his mouth- Lydia pulls together the green beans with funyuns, a family tradition from her mom's side. He's doubtful that it's going to taste good, but far be it from him to judge anybody's Thanksgiving traditions.

Stiles' mom's birthday had been around Thanksgiving, so they always used to celebrate it with her favorite cake on Thanksgiving. Each year, his dad would make a pineapple upside-down cake in honor of Stiles' mom, one of the only things that his dad could make until he had suddenly been forced to begin making all of their meals. For a few years after his mom had died, they'd made pineapple upside-down cake out of habit. Eventually, they just… stopped.

"You're thinking again," Lydia notes, voice cutting through his reverie. Stiles looks over at her, a slightly sheepish expression on his face. She knows that he hates this month. She definitely knows why. She's been pulling him out of his own head for the past two weeks. "Come on, Stiles. It's Thanksgiving. No thoughts. Just food."

"So you don't think we should pull the pumpkin pie out of the oven?" he wonders out loud as the timer begins to beep incessantly.

She casually flips him off as she bends down to grab it. To help her, Stiles reaches over her head and turns off the timer, moving his arm just in time for Lydia to straighten up, pie in hand.

"Oh my god," she groans, placing it on the counter. With her oven mitts still on, Lydia wafts the scent towards herself, breathing in the scent of pumpkin and freshly made crust. "It smells orgasmic."

"Seriously," Stiles agrees. "Great job, Lyds."

There's silence for a few moments as Stiles places his sweet potato concoction into the microwave and sets it. Lydia, for her part, checks on the cornbread from where it's warming in the toaster oven.

"Speaking of orgasmic," she says casually, digging her finger into the mashed potatoes and sucking some off of the tip. Stiles slaps her hand away before she can go for another scoop. She makes a face and turns around to shove the potatoes into the oven, setting the timer for a few minutes. "Becca said that you stayed over last night."

"She did, huh?" Stiles says, trying to ignore the panic that is rising. He _thinks _that his voice sounds casual, but on the inside he's practically screaming. When he turns around to look at Lydia's face, she seems just as calm as he's pretending to be. "That's what she texted you first thing on Thanksgiving?"

"Well, yes," Lydia nods, throwing him a dishrag so that he can tug the sweet potatoes out of the microwave. "It was basically '_Happy Thanksgiving. Stiles made me cum three times last night. Save room for dessert!'_"

He shudders.

"You know way too much information about my sex life."

"Maybe if you stopped fucking my friends," Lydia suggests lightly. "Just a casual observation. Very easy solution to the problem."

"But then how would you know all the sordid details of my sex life?" he teases, sounding more confident than he feels. Lydia doesn't really laugh, so it must not be funny. She just gives a small, sarcastic 'Ha!' and turns around to grab a bowl for the cranberry sauce.

"_You _could tell me," she suggests. "You could send out a weekly newsletter."

"Weekly? You flatter me."

"How so?"

He takes the plates that she hands him and sets them on the table, neatly placing forks to their left. Just for something to do, Stiles makes sure that they are both perfectly aligned with the plates before he begins bringing steaming bowls food over to the table.

"It's nice that you think I would be able to pick up that many girls."

"Oh," Lydia says. "So Becca's not going to become…. a thing."

She's leaning against the counter with an inscrutable expression, fiddling with a piece of her hair that is hanging in front of her face. Stiles wants to tuck it behind her ear, but he purposefully keeps his distance, knowing that the closer he gets, the worse this will be.

"No," he says, shaking his head. "She's not."

"You don't want to be with her?"

She's not looking at him. She's looking at the stove, watching the timer tick down the seconds until their mashed potatoes are rewarmed.

"I don't," Stiles says clearly.

"Why not?" Lydia asks, voice dropping slightly.

They have moments like this far too often for Stiles to read into how she's acting. He used to leave conversations with her confused and hopeful, but he's taught himself to know better. Lydia isn't flirting with him. This is just the way she acts around him. This is just because they're best friends.

Nevertheless, he's grateful when his iPad goes off, Scott's silly contact picture popping up on the screen.

"Oh, look!" Stiles says, the words forced and exaggerated. "They're ready!"

He whirls around and practically jumps onto his chair in his effort to get to the iPad fast enough. Sure enough, Scott's grinning face appears on the screen, waving enthusiastically. He's already got a piece of turkey in his mouth and is letting it flop out, teasing Stiles.

"Hey dude!" he says as soon as he swallows. "I'm just sitting here with my mom's cooking. No big deal. Totally normal."

"I hate you," Stiles says flatly. "I really do."

"Now now," Scott says, lifting some more meat into his mouth and smacking his lips. "Don't over exaggerate. You need to stay _grounded_, you know."

"Dude," Stiles says, "not cool."

"What's not cool?" Lydia asks, setting down one of their many sides onto the table. Stiles thinks that the table is beginning to lilt slightly- they'd decided to go crazy with sides and desserts instead of having any turkey, and the result is a very tiny kitchen table that barely has any room for plates, much less all the food that they've made.

"Global warming," the two of them say simultaneously. Over the years, with talking about all of the weird shit that was going on in Beacon Hills, they decided that they needed a system. Seeing as nobody _ever _wanted to discuss global warming (aside from Al Gore, but whatever) it was a pretty safe bet.

"Stiles!" comes a voice, and Scott shifts over slightly so that his mom can get in on the screen. "Oh, and Lydia. Happy thanksgiving!"

"Thank you," Lydia says sweetly, resting a hand on Stiles shoulder so that she can bend down and address the screen. "Are Derek and Isaac there yet?"

"They're outside comparing roundhouses. Kira is here, though," Scott says, glancing over at someone out of their line of vision. "She's currently tossing the salad."

"Some things even kitsunes can't do with magic!" calls Kira from somewhere in the McCall kitchen.

"Well, we're about ready to start," says Melissa. "Just waiting on your dad, Stiles."

"He's late?"

"Oh, no. He's out making sure that Derek and Isaac don't kill each other."

"Of course," Stiles says, ducking his head. Lydia snorts slightly as she settles down into her seat, snatching the iPad out of Stiles' hand so that they can rest it on the wall.

"Oh, speak of the devil." Scott laughs, and Stiles' dad appears in the window of the screen, waving enthusiastically.

"Hey, kids!" he says, speaking a bit too loudly into the speaker. "How's your turkeyless Thanksgiving going."

"Pretty great, actually," Stiles says, sneaking a small smile at Lydia. She returns it as Derek and Isaac's voices come on over the speakers.

"Ready?" Scott asks his mom, and she nods. They prop the iPad at the head of the table so that Stiles and Lydia are staring at the six of them eating their meal.

"Alright," says Mrs. McCall, glancing around at the table. "Anybody want to say grace?"

**December**

Even though he's used to sharing an apartment, Stiles almost falls down in shock when he unlocks the door and finds Lydia sitting at the kitchen table, casually sorting through her mail.

"What are you doing here?" he asks, and Lydia neatly raises her eyebrow as she slides the envelop opener through her mail.

"I live here," she says clearly. "Maybe you've noticed the girl that has been sleeping two doors away from you every night?"

"You were supposed to be in class," Stiles reminds her. "You have chem right now."

Lydia's eyes drift to the figure over Stiles' shoulder. She tilts her head slightly to the side when she sees Jacob shuffling awkwardly behind Stiles, giving Lydia an uncomfortable smile.

"It got cancelled," she says, still looking at Jacob. "And why don't you want me home when you bring your special friends over?"

Almost immediately, Stiles realizes what this must look like to a girl who doesn't realize that _every _boy who meets her falls in love with her.

"Oh, he's not special," Stiles says hurriedly. "I mean… well, I'm sure he's very lovely and special. He's just not… that kind of friend."

"Why don't you want me here when your friends are here, Stiles?" Lydia asks. He notices the fact that she hasn't put down the envelope opener despite the fact that she isn't opening any mail.

"Uh?" He stares at her. "I don't think I have an answer that isn't going to piss you off?"

"Neither do I," says Lydia, finally putting down the knife and standing up. She brushes the nonexistent wrinkles off of her jeans as she approaches Jacob and extends her hand to him, smiling peacefully. "I'm Lydia. Stiles' roommate. It's lovely to meet you."

Jacob glances over at Stiles.

"Roommate?" he asks, voice lilting upwards.

"Roommate," Stiles grumbles, kicking his foot against the ground as he digs a hand into his pocket.

He has a feeling that he's not being very subtle, but Lydia probably thinks that he's pissed off because of their conversation, not because Jacob is undressing her with his eyes.

"I'll go to my bedroom so that you two can have the kitchen table," Lydia says, going over to grab a few things off of the small surface. "Have fun, boys," she adds, twiddling her fingers at them before shutting the door to her room.

"That's your roommate?" Jacob asks, voice still at a higher register than normal. "Dude. She's hot."

"Really? I hadn't noticed," Stiles says sarcastically.

"No, she is!" insists Jacob. "Seriously."

"I'll keep that in mind," Stiles says drily.

This is why he doesn't bring home friends.

(OOO)

When Lydia bursts into Stiles' bedroom thirty seconds after he's thrown a book at the wall, he knows that he shouldn't be surprised. He is surprised, however, that she's carrying a heavy book of her own, held out in front of herself in defense.

"Are you alright?" she demands, eyes skidding around the room, scanning it for potential danger. "Stiles, are you okay?"

"Merg," he responds, which is pretty eloquent, considering how mushy his brain is feeling. When Lydia sees the way he is slumped against the bed, her body visibly relaxes. She sighs heavily, dropping the book onto his desk as she moves over to where Stiles is lying with his laptop on his stomach, head hanging off of his bed.

"That doesn't look comfortable," she notes.

"S'not meant to be comfortable," mumbles Stiles. "S'meant to make all the smarticalness go up to my brain."

"How's that working for you?" Lydia asks, seating herself on his bed.

"Not so great," Stiles admits, pushing the laptop off of his stomach so that he can sit up. "I can't think anymore. I've written this entire essay aside from the opening, and I just can't get it to fall into place."

Lydia grabs the laptop from him, skimming the text of his poor opening paragraph.

"What class is this for?"

"Philosophy."

"And she's asking you to write about what it means to know something?"

Stiles nods.

"I just kind of threw in a thesis and wrote my essay. Didn't think about the opening."

"'Man will never know anything with absolute certainty, as even statistical fact is fabricated by man-made concepts. Therefore, as knowledge is an impossibility, man must substitute knowledge for strong belief and depend on it to create opinion,'" Lydia reads out loud. "Alright then. I can work with this."

"Heh?" says Stiles eloquently.

"Stand up," she instructs. "Start pacing."

Groaning all the way, Stiles lets his body fall of of the bed. Then he stands up, slowly unfurling his body as he begins to walk in aimless circles around his room.

"Not helping," he says.

"I'm getting there!" Lydia insists, laughing. "Okay. So. I'll give you an opening sentence, and then you expand on it and I'll type. Sound good?"

"Sounds entirely too easy."

"What can I say? I'm a wealth of opening sentences."

"Alright then," he says, gesturing to her. "Hit me with it."

Lydia closes her eyes and begins to type. She hits the period button with gusto, then opens her lids and grins at Stiles.

"'Mythology is laden with characters which carry the weight of their own voluminous hubris.' Discuss."

"I have something to discuss," Stiles says, halting his pacing. "Why do we always go back to mythology?"

"Well, I was studying for my exam when you rudely interrupted me by throwing your philosophy book against the wall. It's on my mind," defends Lydia.

"Fair point," Stiles says, quitting his pacing and hopping onto the bed with her. He props himself up on his elbow so that he's lower than her but can still see the screen of his laptop. "Okay, how about… um…"

"Connect it to the prompt," Lydia coaches.

"'These characters, men and God alike, are often brought to their knees because their true hamartia causes them to believe that they know everything.'"

"Okay, and then just bring that connection to Plato's _The Apology _and you're all set."

He looks up at her.

"You're a genius," he says, slightly awed. "Jesus christ."

"No, _Lydia_."

"Ugh, now you're jumping on the dad jokes train too?"

"Oh, I wonder why," Lydia says sarcastically, giving him a meaningful look.

"Pfft." Stiles flops over and nudges her arm with his nose. "C'mon. Keep writing my essay."

(OOO)

"Are you almost ready?"

The response, as per usual, is a hurried "fuck you!" shouted from the general direction of Lydia's bedroom. He doesn't know what's taking so long. Hadn't she gone out to get her makeup done? Isn't makeup the thing that takes a super long time? He's been sitting around in a tuxedo for the better part of an hour and he doesn't even want to think about how long it's taken for Lydia to get ready. Shit, Stiles doesn't even think that he has the attention span to take so long to get ready.

"I just think that we're going to be late if we don't go soon! The Celtics are playing tonight, so you know, the streets are probably gonna be totally empty, but still."

"Hardy har har," Lydia says, voice closer now. "Okay, I'm ready. Let's go."

He needs at least thirty seconds to register how hot she looks. Before that, he can't really move. Lydia is wearing a tight black dress that has a slit up one side, with her hair left all the way down and curled at the end. She's got this insanely bright red lipstick that matches her red shoes and the red clutch that she is holding.

Stiles has a feeling that this outfit isn't going help him in his lifelong endeavour to not find Lydia Martin hot.

"You look gorgeous," he says, getting off of the couch. When she looks down at the ground, smiling modestly, he moves closer and puts a finger under her chin. "Seriously, Lydia."

They both know that she's beautiful, but the smile that she gives him is so genuine that Stiles knows that this is more than just an act. Him saying that she's gorgeous _means _something to her. It makes a difference. It's better than if he hadn't said it at all.

It may be a ground rule, but Stiles thinks that it's better to have said it than to say nothing at all.

"You look handsome," she murmurs, offering him a smile small. "Definitely better than the last fancy event we went to together?"

Stiles winces.

"You mean the one where you ended up almost dying on the football field?"

Lydia nods.

"Yes," she says slowly. "That one."

He can feel something in his stomach tugging him toward her, telling him to kiss her. They're still so close- too close. He tries to remember the last time he was this close to someone that he felt platonically about, but he can't really remember Scott ever invading his personal space this much. And this doesn't exactly feel like an invasion. It feels natural. If his stomach wasn't dancing with butterflies and his heart wasn't hammering and his palms weren't sweating and his mind wasn't buzzing, he might even feel comfortable.

"You should get your coat," Stiles says, breaking eye contact. Lydia takes a step back so hurriedly that Stiles would think that she had stumbled had he not known that she's been wearing heels since she hit eighth grade. "Actually, no, I'll get your coat. I'm your date tonight, after all."

The joke falls rather flat, which isn't helped by the fact that Stiles gives an awkward little laugh after he makes it, hoping that Lydia will chuckle along with him. She doesn't. She just stares at him, expression emotionless.

"It's on the chair," she says, pointing to where the fabric of her coat is draped over Stiles' messenger bag.

The Massachusetts air is cold when they step outside, shuddering as the icy winter clutches at their flesh. Stiles wishes that he'd had the foresight to line his tuxedo with fleece, but seeing as he's reasonably certain that they don't make tuxes that come with fleece, he just bends his head down and pulls his regular wool coat tighter around his body. It had been hard enough to afford such a nice tux; the average coat is going to have to do for tonight.

He's kind of worried that Lydia is going to slip in her heels on the way from the door to the apartment to the taxi that they've ordered- the one that they're thirty minutes late for. The driver, who had been told to stay with the meter running, is impatient by the time they get into the car and remind him of the address. He drops them off in record time, ready to be rid of them, and speeds off into the evening.

"Are you ready?" Stiles asks Lydia, looking over at her. She looks up at him with eyes that are slightly pleading.

"Am I ready?"

"You're ready," he confirms. "You're the best mingler I know."

She swallows.

"Stiles, can I ask you a favor?"

"Anything," he says fervently.

"Hold my hand."

He takes it without considering any other option. When she squeezes it and starts to walk forward into the stately building at which the event is being held, Stiles follows her dutifully, not letting go until they're inside. They drop off their coats and head into the brightly lit room, filled with intellectuals with old money.

"There's probably a Kennedy somewhere in this room," Stiles says, only half-joking as his eyes search the crowd of WASPs.

"Not funny," Lydia grumps. "You're supposed to be supportive."

"I am supportive!" he gasps, placing a wounded hand over his heart.

"There are no Kennedys here," insists Lydia. "Promise me!"

Stiles snatches two flutes of champagne and hands one to her.

"Here. This is me being supportive." Then he places a hand on the small of her back and ushers her further into the room. "Why don't you find that woman that Professor Asher told you to schmooze? Didn't he say that she would be 'taken' by your fashion sense?"

"I still don't see how my taste in clothing could make someone want to donate to the cause."

"But this party will?"

"The tickets are contributing!"

"Yet the entire thing probably costs more than the revenue from the tickets."

"Okay, Mister Pessimist."

"Who, me?"

"And Mister Sarcasm."

"I am _never _sarcastic."

"And I've never flirted with a teacher to get a better grade."

"Lydia!"

"Just one or two percent more on an essay! Sometimes a bit of cleavage can take you from an A-minus to an A!"

"You're joking, right?"

"Am I?"

"I think you're joking."

"Maybe I am; maybe I'm not."

"Lydia!"

"Oh, Mrs. Fairfax! How lovely to see you!"

He stares at her in disbelief as she confidently approaches a blond woman who is nursing a scotch and soda. Lydia moves effortlessly from banter into hostess mode, probably something she's learned over her many years of hosting parties in Beacon Hills. And then Stiles realizes that _he's _the one that had relaxed her. He's the one that bantered with her until she was calm enough to settle back into her own skin.

Heart picking up speed again, he follows Lydia over to the woman, mouth quirked into a pleasant smile.

"Oh, and is this your boyfriend?" she questions almost immediately. She doesn't wait for an answer, instead delving into her next sentence. "You two are so _sweet _together. Your girl has the most delightful taste in shoes, you know."

"Well, you know what they say. Girls who have good shoe taste…" He stumbles slightly as Lydia raises her eyebrows at him, amused, "make the best… um… shoe shoppers."

Mrs. Fairfax laughs loudly, tucking some hair behind her ear and staring at Stiles as she takes a prolonged sip of her drink.

"Thank god she's drunk," Stiles mutters as they walk away from her eight minutes later (and counting).

"Excellent shoe shoppers?" Lydia mocks. "Good lord. You need practice."

"Hey! I got the hang of it eventually."

"Mhm," Lydia says, rolling her eyes. "Come on. Let's find someone else to sell ourselves to."

"Uh-"

"Shut up and ignore the fact that I just said that."

"Okay."

He falls asleep that night feeling full of wine, conversation, and the warmth that comes from pretending to be Lydia's boyfriend all evening. As he lies in bed and closes his eyes, pulling his blue comforter up close to his ears, he thinks of Lydia sleeping in her bed down the hall and the way she had clung to him as they danced.

(OOO)

Being home is _weird. _

Everybody is expecting everything to be the same, but none of it really is. Lydia and Stiles are different simply in the way that they act around each other, and it's affecting everyone. They're more to ease with each other than they ever have been, constantly mirroring each other's body positions and placing themselves next to each other when they're in the same room.

Stiles can see the surprise and amazement in everybody's eyes. He is fully aware of the fact that they're doing this. He also doesn't really know how to stop.

Beacon Hills had stayed the same, but Stiles and Lydia's friendship hasn't. He only realizes how much has changed when he finds himself missing her as soon as they're not together. He misses her at dinner time, when he's making food for his dad and wishing that she were there to cook it with him. He misses her when he's going to bed at night, when he's just lying there and wants to talk to someone and can't walk across the hall and flop onto her bed. He misses her when he wakes up at 2 o'clock in the morning and realizes that they've spent the entire break without her coming into his bedroom in the middle of the night with a pint of Ben and Jerry's ice-cream and telling him that she can't sleep.

They end up texting all the time, which isn't something that they do when they're at home. Stiles has his phone on him at all times, even during dinner. His dad used to comment on him using his phone at dinner, and one night, Stiles asks why he hasn't since Stiles has gotten back.

"It's because you're texting Lydia," he says like it's obvious.

"How do you know I'm texting Lydia?" Stiles replies, confused. He doesn't remember telling his dad that he's been texting her a ton.

"You get this look on your face when she's texting you," his dad says matter-of-factly. "Everyone knows."

"Everyone?" squeaks Stiles.

"Shut your mouth and eat your peas, son."

"I can't eat them with my mouth closed," he says, sarcasm on autopilot as he mulls over his dad's words.

After that night, Stiles quits trying to be discreet about his feelings for Lydia altogether. She comes over constantly, letting herself into the house and walking unceremoniously into Stiles' bedroom no matter what time it is. One morning, he wakes up to Lydia jumping on his bed holding a bag of doughnuts. That same afternoon, as he texts her while watching a movie with Scott, the latter takes it upon himself to remind Stiles of the ground rules.

Stiles doesn't know how to tell him that they are _so _beyond the ground rules that it isn't funny. He's broken so many of them- probably all of them, although he hasn't looked at the list in a while. The rules seem so completely arbitrary, and he doesn't know why they had them in the first place. Sure, it's important that he doesn't think of Lydia in sexual ways. But he can't control his brain, and as long as he doesn't act on it- seriously, he would never act on it- Stiles doesn't think that it matters much. He has himself in check. Everything is under control.

He believes that, too, until Lydia calls him on New Year's Eve and tells him that she doesn't have any plans.

"That's weird," he says automatically. "Aren't you usually really on top of that stuff?"

He can practically feel Lydia shrug, even though they're on the phone and he isn't sure if she has shrugged at all.

"I guess I was really focused on other stuff and forgot to ask about parties," she states. "It's not a big deal. Do something with me tonight."

"Sure," he says. "My dad will be at a thing, but I can-" _cancel on Scott _"-free my schedule."

"Oh, if you have plans-" Lydia starts, but Stiles stops her.

"I honestly don't want to third-wheel Scott and Kira. As long as you aren't going to have anybody to kiss at midnight either, I think that we'll be okay."

Oh shit. He totally shouldn't have brought up kissing at midnight. Oh shit. That's the worst idea he's ever had since he decided to let himself fall in love with Lydia in the first place. Back in third grade, he'd had _no _idea how long and painful their journey would be. He also had no idea that he'd be living with a girl when he was twenty-one. He probably would have high fived himself, had he been aware of that.

Regardless of awkward phone conversations about kissing, Lydia shows up at Stiles' place at 8 o'clock at night with the first three _Pirates of the Caribbean _movies and two bottles of very expensive champagne.

"No chugging this one," she teases, pouring it into the flutes that Stiles manages to locate in the basement of his childhood home. As she hands him a full glass, he notices that she's wearing a rosy pink dress that falls mid-thigh and a pair of black high heels. And _makeup_. She doesn't wear makeup all the time when they're at home- usually, they'll spend their evenings on the couch in sweats and ignoring the fact that they have more important things to do than re-watch old episodes of _Pushing Daisies_.

"Where'd you get it, anyways?" Stiles asks, dragging his eyes up from her thighs. Oh, god, those thighs. He wants them on either side of his head, squeezing as she rides his... NO. _Bad! No!_

"My mom," says Lydia. "She's never cared much about drinking. Or money."

"What does she care about?" Stiles questions, grabbing the bowl of cheesy pretzels so that he can put them on the coffee table. Lydia considers this as she kicks off her heels and pops a frito into her mouth.

"Being my friend?" she suggests. "Being the favorite?"

Stiles lets out a low whistle.

"It only got you a few sips of alcohol to get you to 'insanely truthful Lydia'."

"It couldn't be the fact that we've known each other since first grade."

"Seventeen years?" Stiles ponders out loud, squinting as he tries to figure it out. "Yeah, somewhere around there."

"I don't know what she would have been like if they hadn't gotten divorced," Lydia says frankly. "Maybe she would have been more of a disciplinarian. But my mom has always just been... I don't know… my friend. She knew when I was drinking and when I was having parties and having sex and she didn't care as long as I was being safe about it."

"That sounds awesome."

"Sometimes I think that having a mom like Mrs. McCall would be better, though," Lydia says quietly. "Or maybe Mr. Argent, so that I could do something other than _scream _when I was in danger."

"Maybe," he shrugs. "But if Mrs. McCall had been your mom, you wouldn't be you, and that would suck."

She side eyes him.

"It would, huh?"

"Definitely," confirms Stiles. "Also, we really don't need two Scotts around. It's hard enough with one."

"Touche."

They go back and forth between _Pirates of the Caribbean _and _Dick Clark's Rockin' New Years' Eve_, even though Ryan Seacrest hosts it now and it's definitely less rockin' than it was when they were growing up. Stiles locates some vodka, and they take shots every time the woman who is walking around the crowds of New Yorkers makes a comment that is flirty or seductive. Which is often. By the time it hits midnight, they're pretty solidly wasted.

It's not like they've never been drunk together before, but there's something different about this. Lydia is pressed up against him, her body weight on top of his. And he _likes _it; likes the heaviness that she brings to his body, keeping him on the couch with her instead of floating up into space.

He usually starts thinking about his mom a lot when he's this drunk, picturing her mind slowly falling to pieces as he and his dad looked on helplessly. That's why he only likes to get buzzed normally. But with Lydia's head on his chest and her hand in his, he thinks that he's okay. He thinks that he doesn't need to think about his mom. He thinks that getting through another year without her is going to be just that- getting through.

By the time the countdown begins, Stiles is intoxicated by alcohol mixed with the strawberry rhubarb scent of Lydia's hair, all winter days in the apartment and the nostalgic scent of high school and it smells like the hope that he's always had when he thinks about being with her. He's never stopped hoping. It's never going to happen but he's never stopped hoping.

Lydia has kept up with him shot-for-shot, but he tries to pretend that this is real, that the snuggling and nuzzling actually exists. He's really being held by a bottle of vodka and three flutes of champagne. That's what Lydia is right now. He wonders if she would taste like champagne if he kissed her, and or if she would taste like the passion fruit lip gloss that she'd been wearing the day she'd kissed him when they were sixteen.

"Ten," Lydia murmurs, the words slurred. She's on top of him, and he's lying down, but she lifts her head and cranes her neck slightly so that she can meet his eyes. "Nine, Stiles."

"Eight," he says, sitting up slightly. Lydia's body is still draped over his, and she's turning to look at him.

"Seven."

She licks her bottom lip, her eyes latching onto Stiles' mouth, staring at his pink lips.

"Six."

He can feel the remnants of their first kiss, the soft press of her mouth against his and the way she'd breathed in against him, not willing to put space between them.

"Five."

All they've ever had is _space;_ eons and light years of space, miles and miles between them. Stiles just wants it to end.

"Four."

He wants his sweaty palms to splay across her stomach as he rucks her shirt up and hears her scream _softly _for the first time in his life.

"Three."

Lydia doesn't seem sleepy anymore. She's just getting closer, caressing the words. When she speaks it's all lips and tongue and _fuck_, he's always wanted her so bad.

"Two."

Two people shouldn't be this close if they're platonic roommates. She shouldn't be straddling his hips. She shouldn't be moving so close that he's worried about getting to number one.

"One."

The word is barely out before she's got her lips enclosed over his bottom lip, sucking leisurely as she moves his body backwards with sheer force of will. His head is against the armrest and he's lifting it up so he can switch positions, covering her mouth more fully and instantly nudging it wider with his tongue.

They get sloppier as the cheers from the crowd fill the air and everybody sings "Shall Auld Acquaintance Be Forgot" and Stiles has literally never understood why they sing this song but he understands the way Lydia is singing above him; a repetitive melody that goes with the slow movement of her hips over his. Lydia separates their lips, lifting her body up and dragging her hands through her hair, head tilted to the ceiling and going faster than she was before.

His hands have sneaked under the band of her bra, dragging her dress up, and all he wants to do is feel her breasts pressing up against his bare chest while her body continues to rock over his. But when she moans, long and drawn out, he snaps his hands away from her warmth almost immediately.

"Lydia," he groans, already knowing that his dick is going to hate him when he does this. "You gotta stop."

Never mind the fact that they're dry humping like they're teenagers again- they're doing it while they're drunk. He knows that she wouldn't be doing this were she sober. He knows that Lydia doesn't feel the same way about him as he does about her.

Her back is arched and her nails are digging into his shoulders, but when he says that, she manages to furl into herself so quickly that Stiles almost gets whiplash.

"Sorry," she mutters, getting off of him. "I sh- I should go?"

"No, Lydia, you don't-"

"I do," she insists, grabbing her cell phone from where it's dropped to the floor. "I'm just gonna… yeah."

She stumbles, barefooted, into the bathroom. Stiles hears her talking quietly on the phone, her voice calm and steady. He's frozen, lying there waiting for her to come back and thank him for stopping her, even though every molecule in his body is begging for him to just let himself _snap_. But when she does come back a few minutes later, it's only to lift up her shoes and purse and kiss Stiles on the forehead.

"Goodnight," she whispers. "I'm sorry."

"What're you-?" he begins to ask, but Lydia has already teetered unsteadily out of his living room and is walking through the dark kitchen so that she can get out the front door. _What is she sorry about_?

He actually rolls off of the couch, then lifts himself up by pretending that there's a red string attached to his back, dragging him towards Lydia. Only his intimate knowledge of the landscape of his house allows Stiles to safely and successfully make his way to the front door.

Stiles throws the door open just in time to see Scott's car pulling out of his driveway, Lydia's strawberry blonde hair visible through the back window even in the dark of the new year.

**January**

There's a stiff awkwardness in the air, despite the fact that they're at home.

It's kind of disappointing, because for the first half of vacation, Stiles had been desperately looking forward to getting away from Beacon Hills and getting back to his world with Lydia. But then they'd ended up making out on New Year's Eve, and the easiness of their relationship seems to have vanished. Whenever he looks at her, all he can think of is the image of her undulating her hips over his, her head tilted back, her hand scrunching up her hair.

They're quiet around each other, silently eating dinner, silently watching television, silently doing homework. Stiles misses playing HeadsUp with her in the living room; misses dancing crazily with her while they make dinner; misses _her_. He hadn't quite realized how easily Lydia used to joke with him until she suddenly seemed incapable of looking at him.

Due to the fact that the bathroom is extremely isolated, Stiles has been spending a weird about of time taking showers. He stays in the bathroom for longer than is normally required and stares at the boring white wall as rivulets of water slide down his body. Even after he's finished shampooing and using Lydia's Vanilla Jasmine body scrub on himself, he doesn't turn off the water.

This may seem like a good escape plan, but apparently, it's not so fool proof when he forgets to lock the door.

"AHA!" comes Lydia's voice, and Stiles screams and reaches down to cover himself when he sees her standing with the curtain drawn back. "I finally got you!"

"What are you doing?" Stiles hollers, grabbing the loofah and placing it where his hands had been so that he can use one hand to point an accusatory finger at Lydia. "You can't just barge in here while someone is taking a shower!"

She crosses her arms over her chest.

"I'm not barging in. I'm taking my revenge."

"For what?" he asks, suddenly feeling like the water has gone cold. Is she taking revenge on him for rejecting her on New Year's Eve? Holy shit… is she going to chop off his penis so that he will spend a lifetime of being rejected by _other _girls, all because he refused the girl that he's wanted to bang since he was in seventh grade and knew what that was?

"For the time you saw me in the shower."

"What?" Stiles says in a high pitched voice.

"Remember when I asked you to get my razer?"

"Vividly."

"Exactly. My idea is that, because you saw mine, I get to see yours. And now I have. So we're even."

"Even?" he yells. "You _asked _me to get your razer! That's not _even!" _

He gapes at her as she shrugs, then turns around and exits the bathroom, pausing at the door.

"Oh, and Stiles?"

"_What_?" he asks angrily, almost dropping his loofah.

"When you come out of that shower, everything is going back to normal. Pre-New Year's normal. We were drunk, we made out, it happened. It's over. Got it?"

"G-got it."

Like he could refuse her anything anyways.

(OOO)

The thing is, Stiles is pretty sure that he could solve all of Lorelai Gilmore's problems for her. They're a lot alike, really. She talks fast. He talks fast. She likes coffee. He likes Lydia. She makes obscure references that nobody ever gets. His best friend _still hasn't fucking seen Star Wars_.

It's pretty simple, actually. Lorelai just needs to choose to be in love with Luke. That would solve everything, Stiles thinks. Because then she wouldn't spend all of her time _wondering _whether they should be together. She would do it. She would go for it. She would take the swing. Lorelai Gilmore would realize that Luke Danes isn't a choice, he's a destiny, just like she's always been for him.

"Hey, Stiles, I… oh my god."

He whips around to see Lydia staring at the screen in shock, having just dropped her keys onto the mail table.

"Uh, no, I- It's not what you think!"

"You're watching _Gilmore Girls,_" Lydia says, moving closer, awestruck. "Ha! I was right! You don't have girls over and watch it with them. You watch it by yourself!"

"Gee, that sounds awfully familiar," Stiles says darkly, which causes Lydia to snort.

"Shut up and move your shit so I can sit down," she says, launching herself over the back of the couch and landing right next to Stiles. "Oh, god, season four. Luke and Lorelai are so close."

"You like them too?" Stiles asks excitedly, turning towards her. When he meets her eyes, he finds that they're sparkling.

"Of course! Does anybody _not_?"

"My dad thinks she should have stayed with Christopher when they were teens."

"Stop! He doesn't!"

"He does," Stiles says. "I know. I was disappointed when I found out too."

"Well, what does Scott think?"

"Scott likes her with Luke, but where we really get into arguments is Rory's love life."

"She should be with Logan, obviously," Lydia says, reaching over to Stiles' popcorn bowl and snatching a piece for herself.

"No way! Dean!"

"Dean? You think Rory should have ended up with- wait. Hang on. Does that mean that Scott wants her with _Jess_?"

"I know, right? Crazy."

"Jess?"

"He only likes Jess because Jess is a bad boy and Scott thinks that he, too, is a bad boy."

"Scott is a puppy dog. He is an actual golden retriever."

"I keep telling him that, but he still thinks that the leather jacket makes him cool."

"Please," Lydia snorts. "Like Kira would date a bad boy."

"I know." 

"Wait," Lydia says, pausing the episode. "Hang on a second. If Scott only likes Jess because he's a bad boy, then by that logic… you like Dean because he's the boy-next-door type."

Stiles shrugs.

"So what if I do? He treated Rory better than any of her other boyfriends did." 

"Logan was wonderful to her!"

Stiles puts up a hand.

"No, stop. Just because he bought her a bunch of shit, doesn't mean that he treated her the way she deserved to be treated."

"I think he was very sweet to her. He just didn't know how to handle his own feelings."

"What about that ultimatum at the end of the series? She didn't deserve that!"

"Okay, so that wasn't Logan's finest moment."

"And when he thought they broke up so he cheated on her a bunch of times?"

"Also not his finest moment."

"And-"

"Okay, so Logan screwed up a few times! But so did Dean! He cheated on his wife the first time he and Rory had sex! That's not okay!"

"I admit that I completely disregard most of Dean's behaviors in season four and five."

"I thought you might say that."

"Whatever, I think it's obvious that the only relationship that is really perfect on _Gilmore Girls _is Luke and Lorelai."

"Amen to that," Lydia says, pointing one finger towards the heavens. "The fact that they don't get together until midway through the series makes it even better."

"Seriously," Stiles agrees. "It's like, everybody knew that they were going to happen, so it was just a matter of _when _and _how_."

"And it was so worth the wait," sighs Lydia. "They always had this string that seemed to connect them together, and when they do finally have a relationship, the bond is so unbelievably strong that even they seem to know it's right."

"Well, it's probably because he's been in love with her for such a long time."

"Hey, she loved him too!" Lydia defends. "It just took her longer to realize it."

"Please," Stiles snorts. "Luke carried a torch almost as long as he carried around that horoscope. He loved Lorelai for way longer."

He's not expecting fury to flit across Lydia's expression, or for her to boost herself up on the couch so that she's in a crouching position in front of him.

"Stiles, just because he loved her longer, doesn't mean she loved him less."

"It kind of does, though."

"No it doesn't!" Lydia's face is starting to turn red, and her eyes are narrowed dangerously at him. "It's not her fault that she didn't love him earlier, Stiles. It just took her longer to figure it out. She needed time. She needed to figure out who she was. She needed to make mistakes and learn from her experiences before she ended up in this big relationship that she knew would define the rest of her life! But that doesn't mean Luke deserves Lorelai more than Lorelai deserves Luke!"

With that, she gets off of the couch, storms into her room, and slams the door shut.

Stiles glances at the invisible camera in the apartment, ala Jim in _The Office_.

"Hey, am I the only one who thinks that was about something deeper than _Gilmore Girls_?"

He can practically hear Jim Halpert nodding.

(OOO)

Stiles has his quiet time on Thursdays, when Lydia has three classes that are almost back to back and spends most of it on the MIT campus. He usually spends the day getting his work done so that he can hang out with Lydia when she gets home. He's totally in the zone, too, until his phone lights up and begins buzzing insistently.

He would have let it ring, too, had he not seen Lydia's name. But he knows for a fact that she's supposed to be in a lecture, so he pounces on the phone and lifts it quickly to his ear, hands fumbling as he does so.

"Lydia?"

"I'm going to scream, Stiles," she whispers. "I can feel it… someone… something... please help. I can't choke it down this time."

He takes a deep breath, closing his eyes. She'd wanted a normal life in Boston, not one full of angst and fear. And so far, she's gotten it, but every once in a while, her powers will be too strong to ignore. Stiles always has, and always will be, the first person that she calls.

"Focus on the sound of my voice," he says coaxingly. "Just listen to my voice, Lydia."

She breathes heavily into the phone.

"I have to scream."

"Don't," he begs. If she screams, everybody in Cambridge will hear it, and she will go back to being the crazy girl that she was at Beacon Hills. "Lydia, try to use the strings of my vocal chords to hear the voices. Listen to me. Don't scream."

"Okay," she says, slightly desperately. "Can you keep talking?"

"I'll do you one better," Stiles says. After taking a deep breath, he starts humming the _Chuck _theme song. There isn't really much of a melody, but it's better than him talking, and there's a lot of monotonous notes, just like the pitch of Lydia's screams. He can hear her breathing as he hums for her, and then hears the relief in her voice.

"I know where to go," she says, trance-like. "Stiles, can you come with me?"

"Where do you want to meet?" he asks, getting up immediately and grabbing his coat and keys.

"The Commons," she says. "Are you sure you can come? It's fine if you can't, I just-"

"I'm already out the door," he says gently. "Be there in a few, Lyds."

(OOO)

It's almost 2 AM when Stiles peels back the covers on his bed and opens the door to his room a crack. Lydia's room seems dark, but he doesn't have any qualms with opening the door and coming inside and slipping under the covers with her. She doesn't wake up at first, instead snuggling closer to him in the dark, mumbling his name quietly in her sleep. He knows she's barely aware of what's going on, which is why he's okay with brushing some hair away from her cheekbone to wake her up.

She never remembers those first moments when he crawls into bed next to her.

"Hey Lyds?" he whispers. "I gotta tell you something."

She's so innocent when she's asleep; he almost doesn't want to wake her up into a world where her best friend is dead and her banshee powers control so many pieces of her life. Still, she's already beginning to shift awake, nuzzling his shoulder with her nose as she does.

"Whazziz it?" she says, smacking her lips slightly with her tongue. "Are you okay? Did you have another nightmare?"

"No." He shakes his head, trying not to grin as she nods sleepily and grabs his hand so that she can tuck it under her chin for no discernable reason. "I just wanted to say that… well… I've been thinking about what you said."

"What did I say?"

"About Lorelai loving Luke just as much as he loved her, even though it took her longer."

"I was right," Lydia says.

"I know you were," Stiles replies quietly, picking up a piece of her hair and running his fingers over it. "I'm sorry that I didn't know that before."

"'S okay."

"It's not."

"Is."

"No," he says harshly. "That was… that wasn't you. That was me. Being bitter. About stuff that neither of us have any control over. Stuff that isn't _Gilmore Girls_. But it made me think about… you know, that stuff, and it brought all of this resentment up, and… the truth is… it isn't Lorelai's fault. And it isn't Luke's fault either. It's just what had to happen so that they could be together when it was right for them to be together. That's their story, and it's not their fault, or our fault, that it didn't go as smoothly as it could have."

"Mmm," Lydia says, breathing in deeply. "I know. You're right."

"_You're _right."

"We can both be right as long as you're agreeing with me."

He chuckles before kissing her hairline and throwing back the covers.

"You can stay," she says, grabbing the back of his shirt and pulling him towards her. "It's cold in your room."

"It's cold in your room too."

"But I have heavier covers."

"Okay," he whispers, melting back onto the bed, into her arms. "Goodnight, Lydia."

"Goodnight," she says, sounding awake for the first time. "Hey, Stiles?"

"Yeah?"

It's his turn to be falling asleep; her pillow smells like her shampoo, and her hands are holding him tight against her, and he thinks, not for the first time and not for the last time, that when she's around, he'll never have a nightmare.

"I'm sorry that I didn't love you sooner."

As he slips into sleep, he wonders if she means it in the same way that he thinks she means it. He wonders if that's possible after all they've been through. He wonders, so hopefully, if there is a way in which the events of their story could play out in a manner that could normalize sleeping like this every night.

**February**

Nail polish used to be daunting, but Stiles has actually gotten really good at putting it on Lydia. Today, it's a dark blue color, almost black, that matches oddly well with the shoes that she's got stationed by the door.

He doesn't know what she's dressing so well, but he decides to ignore it because they're watching the pilot episode of _Friends _and Lydia is making him laugh by saying every single line with the characters, using the exact same facial expressions and vocal inflections. The only thing that she's not copying is arm gestures, and that's because Stiles has one of her hands in his lap and is concentrating very hard on not getting polish on her skin.

Guys don't normally do this for their friends that are girls, but Stiles figures that they'd moved into uncharted territory so long ago that it doesn't make sense that _this _wouldn't make sense. Like, yeah, guys don't do this for their girl-friends. But they also don't do this for their girlfriends. They're in this undefinable place in which they're too close to be just friends but too far apart to be dating. He hates it.

Although Stiles had waited for Lydia to say something about what she'd whispered to him the night he'd fallen asleep in her bed, her lips remain sealed on the topic. Granted, he hasn't exactly pushed it. When Lydia had woken up and acted like everything was normal the next morning, Stiles had just sort of gone with it. The best bet has always been to follow her lead. She's the smartest person that Stiles knows- who else's lead would you follow if not Lydia freaking Martin?

But Lydia freaking Martin's lead has put them in the weirdest of places, and all Stiles wants to do is grab her shoulders and shake them because first they made out and didn't talk about it, and now she's said that she _loves him_ and has yet to specify the extent of this love. And he doesn't know if he can take another three semesters of this, if they're planning on living together next year.

Maybe they just shouldn't live together next year.

As Lydia states, in a hysterical voice, Rachel Green's line about being a hat, Stiles contemplates this carefully. Who would he live with, if not Lydia? Would it actually be better for the two of them to not live together? They have this rhythm, and this camaraderie, and he doesn't know if he can imagine his shampoo sitting in a shower that doesn't have Lydia's conditioner right next to it. He kind of feels like they belong together now- how could he consider separating them?

It would be selfish to separate his shampoo and her conditioner. Very, very selfish.

"Did you want to live together next year?" Stiles asks as he screws the brush into the bottle of polish. Lydia sticks out her hand and admires it, tilting her head to the side.

"Nice job with the thumb."

"Thanks. I feel like I really moderated the amount of polish I got onto it this time."

"No, yeah, definitely."

"So… next year?"

She looks up, smiling brightly.

"You know, I would _love _to talk about this," she says, placing a hand on his shoulder. "But I actually have plans."

Oh, okay. Now the shoes make sense.

"Oh."

"That's him now, actually!" she enthuses as there's a knock at the door. "Speak of the devil and the devil arrives impeccably on time."

_Him_? She's painting her nails for a him? Not only a him, but a him who is impeccably on time. Stiles is never impeccably on time.

"Hi!" Lydia says. "Great to see you, Andrew!"

_Andrew_? _What kind of name is Andrew?_

"Nice to see you too, Lydia. You look stunning."

No, really, what kind of name? Does Andrew have biblical origins? Or is he thinking of Abraham?

"Thank you. You're not so scruffy looking yourself."

Oh _hell _no! Did she just flirt at him using a _Star Wars _reference?

"Ready to go?" asks the guy.

Stiles gets off of the couch in a shot, going to stand behind Lydia in the doorway. Andrew looks surprised as he approaches.

"Wow, where's the fire?" he asks. "Lyds, why don't you invite this guy in for a drink or something?"

"So you can ask him about his career prospects?" she asks, arching an eyebrow. "No thanks, dad."

Andrew salutes Stiles as Lydia picks up her coat and brushes past him into the hallway.

"I'll have her back by midnight," he says, winking. "Or, you know, later. If I'm lucky."

Stiles really hopes that Andrew doesn't have the luck of the Irish.

(OOO)

Normally, waking up to the smell of freshly brewed coffee would make Stiles' day better. Today, however, it does not. Because Lydia doesn't know how to make coffee- she says that if she learns how to make it, that particular skill will be the beginning of a very costly coffee addiction. So, instead, she has Stiles make it for her, then pretends that she doesn't desperately need a caffeine fix first thing in the morning.

When he gets to the kitchen, he is unsurprised to see Andrew standing there in a t-shirt and boxers, scrambling eggs in a pan. He's not even using the right spatula for it, but _whatever_. Who is Stiles to judge? Andrew got laid, after all. Stiles doesn't get laid. He doesn't ever get laid because he's too busy being hung up on his stupid roommate who is way too hot for him anyways and who he has been in love with since before he knew what it meant to love someone that much. And this, right here, is why they have the ground rules. This is it.

But Stiles had fucking laughed in the face of the ground rules; he had gotten cocky; he had pretended that they stopped pertaining to his relationship with Lydia. Now look where they are. He's broken almost all of them and is standing in the kitchen with a man who is cooking post-sex breakfast for Lydia. And Stiles is the only one in this flat with a broken heart, which is, of course, all his fault. Because he hadn't followed the freaking ground rules.

"Hey, man," Andrew greets. "G'morning."

"Yeah, morning."

"Hope we didn't keep you up last night," Andrew winks. God, is this guy's major _Assholeology? _

"You did," Stiles states flatly, pouring a cup of coffee into Lydia's moustache mug.

"She can be loud," shrugs Andrew. "Sorry, man."

"It's okay," Stiles says, even though it isn't because he'd had to leave to apartment at midnight when Lydia and Andrew had stumbled in from their date and barely made it into her bedroom. He'd ended up spending forty minutes wandering around Boston, hoping that it would be enough time. But he'd arrived home to noises that definitely will not help him in his endeavours not to picture Lydia naked every single time he talks to her. Oh, god, and hearing all that shit will not make it easier to not think about her when he gets off. This is a disaster.

"Good morning, everyone," Lydia says cheerfully, walking into the kitchen. She immediately goes to Andrew and presses a quick kiss against his mouth before reading towards the coffee. Andrew is shorter than Stiles, he notes, so she doesn't have to stand on her tip toes quite as much as she would were she to- nope. Stop. Stop now.

"Everyone?" Stiles says, voice a little to high pitched. "Nope, not everyone. Just me. Your roommate. And Andrew. Andrew! The guy that you had sex with last night. Ha. Funny. Funny for _everyone_."

They stare at him in surprise as his eyes dart, panicked, between the two of them. Then he chooses _flight _as opposed to _fight _and dives down the hallway that leads to his bedroom.

(OOO)

"Do you want to do something tonight?"

Stiles looks up from his psych textbook to see Lydia at the door to his bedroom, peering through and flashing him a winning smile.

"Do… do _you_?" he asks, confused.

"Yes," she says, her voice saying 'duh' even though she hasn't. "I miss you. You spend all of your time in here these days," she adds, knocking on the door to his bedroom. "Don't you get lonely?"

"No," he lies. "I'm used to studying by myself."

Lydia frowns, opening his door wider so that she can walk over to his bed.

"Come on," she pleads. "Let's go out!"

"I'm really busy tonight, actually."

"Stiles!" Lydia says, aghast. "How dare you reject my advances."

"I have a test tomorrow, and-"

Lydia lifts a foot onto his bed and begins jumping on it, waving her arms dramatically.

"Stiiiiilles," she complains. "Play with me!"

Oh my god. He hates her. He actually hates her.

"Do you know what night it is?" he asks, grabbing her by the ankle so that she falls onto his bed next to him. She does so with ease, grinning. Stiles doesn't even know how Lydia Martin manages to fall down gracefully, but she pulls it off with finesse.

"Sure I do."

"It is Valentine's Day," he says as though he has not heard her. "Do you know what people normally do on Valentine's Day?"

"Buy overpriced dinners, then rent overpriced hotel rooms and have sex in overpriced lingerie, after which they give each other overpriced flowers and chocolates?" she rattles off, blinking twice.

"Actually, yes," Stiles concedes. "But who do they do that with?"

"Their sig-"

"Their significant others, exactly."

"Thank you for the information, Mister Stilinski," Lydia says drily. "But I don't have plans with Andrew tonight."

"Well, why not?"

"I didn't feel like shaving my legs," she cracks. "Now, I'm thinking we cook something, then hit up Mike's Pastries."

"Mike's Pastries in this weather? Are you crazy? We'll be out in that line for hours."

"We have hats and mittens."

"Because those help so much."

"Don't be an idiot, Stiles. You only live once, you know. Zac Efron has a tattoo that says it, so it must be true."

"He does? When did he get that?"

"I don't know; sometime during the 'yolo' craze of 2011."

"Jeez, yolo was 2011? Seems forever ago."

"Pop culture moves in mysterious ways."

"So, where's the tattoo?"

"On his hand."

"And is it ironic or is he just that into Drake?"

"Do you think I _know _Zac Efron?"

"Does anyone really know Zac Efron?"

She opens her mouth to answer, then snaps it shut and points accusingly at Stiles.

"Stop changing the subject!"

"I was not changing the-!"

"Get dressed; we're going to the North End," Lydia commands, sliding off of the bed and heading into her own bedroom.

"Lydia!" he calls after her, and she emerges into his room a second later, frowning.

"Yeah?"

"Is there a reason you're not with him on Valentine's Day?"

She looks down at the ground.

"No."

"No?"

"No."

"You just… didn't want to be with him?"

"I wanted to be with you," she says, looking up at him. "Can you live with that or is it going to be a sticking point all night?"

"I can deal," he mutters, picking at a loose thread on his bedcovers.

"Good," she says, her dimples showing as she smiles. "Now let's go get the world's best cannolis."

**March **

When she comes home, he has everything set up.

There's ice cream, brownies, and four different versions of _Pride & Prejudice _laid out on the coffee table. He's got tea, fuzzy socks, and whiskey all set up, plus coffee in the pot in case she wants some afternoon caffeine.

"You heard," she says immediately, before Stiles can even open his mouth to greet her. She rolls her eyes as she kicks her shoes off next to his, immediately losing about five inches. "Who told you?"

"Is that really important?"

"Yes," she says immediately.

"You told Kira, Kira told Scott, Scott told me, and I'm really, really sorry Lydia."

"It's fine," she says, lifting up _Bridget Jones' Diary_. "Seriously, it isn't a big deal, Stiles."

"You had a breakup!"

"With a guy that I've been dating for a month."

"But it still sucks," he says, patting the couch next to him. "Now will you just put on the lacrosse hoodie that you're always stealing from me and sit down on this couch so that we can watch the Colin Firth movie and talk about his ass?"

"...His what?"

"Hey. Even I can appreciate a fine ass."

"I…?"

"I mean, you had to point it out to me, but once it became clear to me, it was kind of hard to miss."

"Alright!" she says, throwing up her hands. "We'll watch _Bridget Jones' Diary_. Congratulations."

"On what?"

"On successfully convincing me that you have a tiny thing for Colin Firth." 

"Does anyone not have a tiny thing for Colin Firth?"

"Your point is well made and even better received. Put it in."

"That's what she said."

"I will kill you."

"She said that too."

"What kind of weird sex have you been having?"

"That is for me to know and you to find out."

"I think I'd rather not."

"Shhh, Renee Zellweger is voice-overing."

"That's not a verb."

"You're not a verb."

Lydia moves closer to him on the couch, probably only so that she can grab a pint of chubby hubby, but he smiles nonetheless when she doesn't move away. She's been totally off limits to him for a month, but she hasn't _really_. Yeah, she's been a bit more careful around him, but Stiles is pretty sure that Lydia has spent more time with him than she has Andrew, barring the first two weeks or so of their relationship.

It's almost like she would pick Stiles over him.

"Um, can I ask a question?" he says hesitantly. "Feel free to not answer this."

"Sure," Lydia says easily, popping a brownie piece into her mouth.

"Why did you two break up?"

She takes a moment to think about this.

"We have different goals," she says finally.

"Really?" Stiles frowns. "I mean, you guys are both really career oriented."

"Not those kinds of goals."

"Okay, but-"

"Can we not talk about this?" she asks. "I'm the person that just had a breakup. It's my day."

"Yeah, sorry," he says. "That's fine."

"Thank you," Lydia says quietly, looking up at him through her lashes. "And I don't mean just for that. I mean… for everything."

He licks his bottom lip.

"Yeah," he says. "Sure. No problem."

"No, seriously," Lydia pushes. "You didn't have to do this. You don't have to do any of this."

"I do," he says, cutting her off. "Just… I do."

"Why?" she asks.

"Because," he says slowly, "You're Lydia, and I'm Stiles, and this is just what we do. We protect each other. We figure stuff out."

"It is, isn't it?"

She's not leaning. She definitely can't be leaning right now. This isn't happening. She's not leaning. No, wait, she just had a breakup. She doesn't _want _to be leaning. She's just vulnerable and lonely and sad. It's his job to make sure that she doesn't do stuff that she regrets when she's sad.

"I gotta go," he says, scrambling off of the couch so quickly that he falls onto the floor. "Um, enjoy the food. And the movie. And Colin Firth's ass."

"Stiles?"

"Yeah, I, uh, have class, and-"

"It's Sunday."

"I have class tomorrow!" he says loudly. "I just… yeah."

He tears into his room, searching desperately for the lone piece of paper in his bottom drawer. Lydia is still staring in the direction of his bedroom when he bursts out of it and grabs his coat, shutting the door too loudly in his haste to get outside.

Stiles ends up on a bench outside of Faneuil Hall, breathing loudly and ruggedly. With shaking hands, he opens the list and stares at the words that he'd written last August. When he reaches into his pocket with his left hand, he hands a pen there. Carefully, he lays the paper onto the bench and clicks the back of the pen.

**GROUND RULES: **

_1) __No mean teasing_

_2) Don't talk about the past_

_3) Do not compliment her. Ever._

_4) Don't touch her._

_5) No pining._

_6) If she has "friends" over, get out._

_7) Don't think about her naked._

_8) Don't see her naked._

_9) Don't sleep next to her._

_10) No sex._

_11) Don't tell her that I love her._

Okay. Alright, then. He's done every single one of these except for ten and eleven. He'd only got two rules left, and everything else is meaningless. This is his fault. He's done it to himself.

Goddamn it, he's so useless. He couldn't even follow a couple of rules to keep his relationship with Lydia easier. So he can't do this again. He can't live with her next year.

(OOO)

"I think you can."

"Don't be an ass Scott. I can't live with Lydia anymore. When school ends, that's it. It's over."

"But are you sure it has to be like that?"

"You're the one that thought this was such a bad idea in the first place!"

"Yeah, but then I saw you two during break. You guys were kind of amazing to look at. It's like you've been a couple all this time without any of the physical stuff, and without realizing what you're doing."

Stiles burrows himself further into the couch cushions, scratching his head for something to do with his hands.

"Well, that's the thing. I knew. The entire time, I've known how I feel. And that's what ruined this thing in the first place. It was a disaster before it even began."

"I don't think it _was _a disaster."

"Well I do!"

"But, dude, you were so happy!" Scott exclaims. "I've never seen you that at peace. She brings something to you that nobody else in the world can, and I think that's something that you need to fight for."

"I spent the entirety of high school fighting, Scott," Stiles says warily. "I'm so fucking tired of fighting."

The door to Lydia's bedroom opens and she emerges from it, still humming along with the loud music that is playing on her expensive speakers.

"Stiles!" she shouts over the noise, even though he's sitting right in front of her. "Can I borrow your glitter pens?"

Scott snorts as Stiles flips him off.

"I do not have glitter pens."

"I saw your psych project. It was covered in glitter."

"They're in the bottom right drawer of my desk."

"Thank you very much," she says before diving into his room.

"That was chilly," Scott comments.

"It's been like that since she broke up with Andrew."

"Oooof course it has."

"I know what you're going to say."

"You do?" Scott says innocently.

"You're going to say that I did it to myself."

"You did do it to yourself. But that doesn't mean that it was the wrong decision."

"Look," Stiles sighs. "I'm just gonna tell her that I can't live with her next year. And then-"

"WHAT THE _HELL _IS THIS?"

Stiles and Scott both look up in alarm to see Lydia standing above Stiles, clutching onto a well worn piece of paper.

"Oh shit," Scott says.

"Oh shit," Stiles agrees, panic filling him. "Um?"

"What is this?" Lydia asks again, shaking the piece of paper. "_Ground Rules_?"

"It's…. um… a novel that Scott was thinking of writing! About…"

"About being a werewolf!" Scott pipes up.

"You can't write a novel about being a werewolf, idiot," Stiles groans. "People are going to know you're a werewolf if you write a novel about being a werewolf!"

"Stop bullshitting me," Lydia snaps, bending over so that Scott can see the anger in her eyes. "What the _hell _is this, you idiots?"

"Gotta go!" Scott says suddenly, saluting the two of them. "Bye, guys. Love you!"

A second later, the call times out. Steeling himself, Stiles gets up from the couch.

"Okay," Lydia says, crossing her arms over her chest. God, her face is kinda red, but she's still really hot. Damn her. "Let's hear it."

"It is a list."

"I KNOW THAT IT'S A LIST!"

"A list of things that I am not allowed to do while living with you."

"This is about me, then," she confirms. "This is a bunch of stuff that you weren't allowed to do or say to me because you were afraid of… what, exactly?"

"Of hurting you, of ruining this, of making it harder for everybody," Stiles rattles off. "I didn't want you to be uncomfortable because you were living with a guy that was in love with you. I wanted to make it easier for you."

"So, let me get this straight," Lydia says, gritting her teeth. "I am doing, literally, _everything _that I can to make it obvious that I have feelings for you. And all the while, you're rejecting these advances over and over again because of a _list_?"

"Not because of a… wait, what?"

"I mean, I kept putting myself out there and waiting for you to see that I want you. Waiting for you to do something about it. And all you care about is adhering to your dumb guidelines? Did it ever occur to you that I _wanted _sex with you?"

"Um… no?"

"Well maybe you should have asked that before sticking it on a fucking list!"

"Lydia, are you saying that-?"

"I have spent this entire time thinking that you didn't want to be with me," she says, starting to pace. "I dated another guy to try to get over you! I pushed you towards other girls to see if you would want to be with me! I told you that I'm _in love with you _and you totally ignored it_."_

"You're in love with me?" squeaks Stiles.

"OF COURSE I'M IN LOVE WITH YOU, DOUCHEWAGON!"

"I probably deserved that one."

"Of course you deserved it, asshat!"

"WELL YOU KNOW WHAT, LYDIA? YOU DIDN'T MAKE A MOVE EITHER!"

"I THOUGHT I WAS BEING OBVIOUS!" she cries out. "I THOUGHT THAT, AFTER ALL THOSE YEARS OF NOT NOTICING YOU, I DIDN'T DESERVE TO MAKE THE MOVE! I THOUGHT THAT, IF YOU WANTED ME, YOU WOULD JUST GO FOR IT, INSTEAD OF BEING A NOBLE DICKHEAD ABOUT IT!"

"Was that a compliment, or…?"

"No!"

"Sorry, sorry. I just couldn't tell."

"Oh goddamn it," she sighs. "I am going to yell at you so hardcore later."

"But… right now?"

"Right now…" she says, and that's when she takes a deep breath before running into his arms and smashing their lips together.

She doesn't exactly approach kissing in a gentle way, which Stiles figures is probably his fault, but that doesn't stop him from wrapping his arms around her waist and lifting her into the air, grunting slightly at the pressure of her body against his.

"Oh my god," he gasps as her lips move frantically from his lips to his jawline. "You're kissing me."

"Mhm."

She wraps her legs around his waist and he cups her ass to support her, feeling kind of invincible when she doesn't protest.

"I'm kissing _you_."

"Mhm."

"Would it be weird if I did a fist pump right now?"

"_Mhm_," she responds, just as she fits her lips to his again. "But if you wanted to high five when we're done, I'm not sure I would entirely object to that."

"When we're done?"

"Bedroom," she says. "Now."

"Wait, no, hang on!" he says. Lydia gives him a murderous glare. "Sex is against the ground rules."

Her nostrils flare as she hops down from Stiles' waist and bends onto the floor to pick up the list. Staring at him dead in the eye, Lydia rips it into four pieces.

"That's what I think of your fucking ground rules," she says. "Now can we go, please?"

"You sure you don't want to yell at me now?" Stiles asks, checking one last time.

"STILES!"

"Okay, okay!" he says, grabbing her hand and leading her into his room. "Sex now, yelling later."

"Sounds perfect," she says, closing the door behind them and pulling her shirt over her head. "Although those two things shouldn't necessarily be mutually exclusive. Just… keep that in mind."

**May**

"Are you sure you're ready for this?"

She squints at him, cocking her head as her thumb starts to rub the palm of his hand.

"Are you sure you're not being annoying right now?"

"I just think that this is a really big step, Lydia."

The bench that they're sitting on seems to have enough left-over space at the end in case Lydia wants to smack him a lot. That's good.

"It won't change _anything_, Stiles."

"I know, but it's just a big deal."

"I think it will be okay," she says drily. "Really, I do."

"Fine," he says, lifting their enjoined hands up to his lips and pressing a kiss against them. "I do too, in that case."

They're still smiling at each other when the door to the office opens. Immediately, they straighten up, holding hands even more tightly when they see the large man.

"Mr. Stilinski," he says, reaching out a hand for shaking. "Ms. Martin. Come right in. The papers are all ready for you."

"Fantastic," Lydia says warmly. "Thank you so much."

They follow him into the dark office, then take two seats across from the desk.

"You just have to sign here, and here," the man says, handing them both pens.

They lean down, signing their names in careful signatures. Lydia's is much prettier than Stiles' will ever be. When they've both got their names down, he breathes a sigh of relief.

"Wonderful," the man says. "Congratulations. I'm glad that you liked the apartment enough to renew the lease."

"Us too, sir," Stiles says, nodding.

"A lot of people find that living with one person for so long can be difficult. So much in a person's life changes in college, you know."

"We know," he replies. "Believe me, we know."

"But luckily," Lydia adds, smirking up at Stiles. "We've never been much for following the rules."

_**A/N: **_**Holy cow! You made it to the end! I am amazed by your perseverance! **

**First of all, I would like to say that I own zero-percent of the television shows mentioned in this story. This fic was edited by ANANBETH (Hannah) on tumblr. It is dedicated to Stilesmcalll (Gianna) and Furbyhater (Sophii) for their enthusiasm and encouragement. I hope you enjoy, and I hope that you tell me what you think! I loved every second of writing this fic, even if it took about two lifetimes to complete. And, yes, I cried when I finished. Don't judge me. You're judging me, aren't you? ~writergirl8**


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